PARTHENOGENESIS. 1 ( J 



particulars in the following words* : — u I have reared females of 

 Bombyx Pini, which, without any previous copulation, laid eggs 

 from which the caterpillars were developed, and passed through 

 all their transformations." Another case was mentioned by 

 L. C. Treviranus in these wordst: — " I have mvself been an 

 eye-witness, that a female of Sphinx Ligustri, which had been 

 developed from the pupa in my room during the night, and was 

 impaled upon a pin the next morning, laid numerous eggs on 

 the second day, from which caterpillars were evolved, exactly in 

 the same way as if a copulation with a male had taken place, 

 which most certainly was not the case." But when we remem- 

 ber what is stated above by the Theresians and Scheven, Trevi- 

 ranus' simple assurance, that in the case of this female Sphinx 

 no copulation took place, will not suffice to remove all doubts 

 as to whether a male may not have come secretly and unobserved 

 and effected a copulation with this female, which might have 

 escaped the observation of Treviranus the more easily as he cer- 

 tainly did not previously think of a Parthenogenesis, or watch 

 the impaled female very closely. Still more unsatisfactory are 

 the very short statements of BurmeisterJ, in which nothing 

 further is said than that Dr. Al. von Nordmann observed a spon- 

 taneous development not long before in Smerinthus Populi, and 

 that a similar instance was known in Gastropacha potatoria. 

 Lacordaire's statements § also, regarding Lucina sine concubitu in 

 Gastropacha Pint, and a case observed by Carlier, according to 

 whom three generations were produced from a specimen of Liparis 

 dispar without copulation, can only be received with distrust, 

 as we look in vain in them for any exact description of the em- 

 ployment of any of those precautions which are necessary in 

 such observations. 



Another case of Parthenogenesis is said to have been observed 

 by Plieninger ||. He had reared several females of Gastropacha 



* See Heusinger's Zeitschriftfur die organischePhysik, Band ii. 1828, p. 263. 



t See his Vermischte Schriften anatomischen und physiologischen Inkalts, 

 Bandiv. 1821, p. 106. 



X Handbuch der Entomologie, Band i. p. 33/. 



§ Introduction, torn. ii. p. 383. 



|| See Wurtembergische naturwissenschaftliche Jahreshefte, Heft i. 1848. or 

 Schleiden und Froriep's Notizen aus dm Gebiete der Natur- und HeUhatde, 



Band vii. 1848, p. 232. 



C 2 



