ON 



TRUE PARTHENOGENESIS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



It is high time that Zoologists and Physiologists should turn 

 their attention to a phenomenon in the history of the re- 

 production of animals, which, during the last few years, has 

 warmly interested the Apiarians and set them in the greatest 

 excitement, — I mean the mode in which each separate colony of 

 Bees contrives that the worker-, drone-, and royal-cells prepared 

 by it are always furnished with the proper eggs, from which, as 

 is required by the arrangement of these different kinds of cells, the 

 worker-larvae, drone-larvae, and queen-larvae destined to dwell in 

 them, are always excluded. Hence the oviposition in the Bee-hive 

 must be effected according to peculiar rules, in order that the 

 conditions just mentioned may be fulfilled; this act of oviposition 

 must be subjected to determinate laws, which do not affect the ovi- 

 position of most other insects, as in these it is a matter of indif- 

 ference in what consecutive order and number male and female 

 eggs are laid. But the question, how each separate Bee-colony 

 succeeds in obtaining the suitable supply of eggs for all its combs, 

 differently as these are prepared as regards the number and 

 arrangement of the three kinds of cells, has not been easily 

 answered ; nay, we may perhaps say, that this process has hitherto 

 appeared to be an impenetrable mystery, the solution of which 

 has not been effected by the most careful endeavours and observa- 

 tions of the Apiarians continued for many years. This mysterious 



B 



