h 



2 PARTHENOGENESIS 



the office of preserving by its secretion the seminal mass remain- 

 ing for months in the seminal capsule, in a fresh state. Berlepsch, 

 starting from this view, now thought, that the maternal liquor 

 of the appendicular gland constantly penetrating (into the semi- 

 nal receptacle) gradually permeates the spermatozoa to such an 

 extent that their paternal elements are overpowered by the mater- 

 nal ones. . If the mother-bee is of pure Italian blood, none but 

 variegated Bees must be produced from her fertilized eggs, as 

 soon as the spermatozoa derived from a German drone are suffi- 

 ciently permeated ; but, on the contrary, if the mother be not 

 purely Italian, black Bees will always remain. This conjecture, 

 which I only quote here for the present as a conjecture, without 

 saying anything for or against it, Berlepsch also endeavoured to 

 support by the behaviour of a German queen, which, being fer- 

 tilized by an Italian drone, produced last year variegated Bees 

 amongst the black, but this year only black Bees. 



In all these observations with reference to the propagation 

 and multiplication of the Italian race of Bees, the brood of drones 

 always turned out purely Italian, or purely German, even when 

 crossings occurred between the German and Italian Bees, accord- 

 ing as the queen subjected to crossing belonged to the Italian or 

 German race. But in order to attain certainty with regard to 

 these phenomena, the observations to be made for this purpose 

 must be performed with the greatest care. The observations 

 will have to be made only with individuals of perfectly pure race, 

 which will not always be obtained with ease and certainty, since 

 the breeding of the Italian swarms side by side with the German 

 bee-hives is already carried on amongst us to a very great extent. 

 How difficult it may be to find a perfectly genuine and pure 

 queen for such experiments, is shown by the mixtures of the two 

 races of Bees in question, observed by Berlepsch and already 

 referred to. I can therefore lay no very great stress upon an 

 observation which Dzierzon made upon an Italian queen, and 

 which, as I have already indicated (p. 64), has made this cautious 

 Apiarian doubtful of his own theory. This isolated case, in 

 which, moreover, some circumstance might probably have re- 

 mained unnoticed, cannot overthrow a proposition, the correct- 

 ness of which has been confirmed in so striking a manner by a 

 number of other observations. How Dzierzon was surprised by 



