IN THE SILK-WORM MOTH. 97 



oeufs deposes par des femelles vierges se developpent. Plusieurs 

 cultivateurs de vers a soie m'ont assures la meme chose." 



These various notices upon Bombyx Mori, taken together with 

 the observation made by Curtis upon an isolated American 

 Bombyx, in which no mistake could certainly have slipped in, 

 as well as an observation reported by Johnston *, according to 

 which caterpillars were evolved from the eggs taken out of the 

 body, and therefore unfecundated, of a Smerinthus ocellatus 

 killed two days previously, — all these statements confirmed me in 

 supposing the existence of a Parthenogenesis also in Bombyx 

 Mori, although I have denied this amongst the Lepidoptera, with 

 the exception of particular Psychidce. I am not on this account 

 to be accused of an inconsistency, for the examples previously 

 (p. 12) cited by me, which were supposed to speak in favour of 

 the Parthenogenesis of the moths, can never be admitted as 

 credible evidence, for the reasons already asserted. 



In order to obtain personal observations upon the Partheno- 

 genesis in Bombyx Mori, I put myself in communication with 

 various silk-worm breeders in Breslau and Munich ; from these 

 also I received the serious assurance, that caterpillars were not un- 

 frequently developed from the eggs laid by unfertilized female silk- 

 worm moths. By the courtesy of the manufacturer, Herr Steiner 

 of Breslau, an extensive silk-breeding establishment was put at 

 my disposal, with the aid of which I was enabled to inform my- 

 self upon various interesting processes in the oviposition and 

 development of the Silk-worm. First of all, in the summer of 

 1852, I procured a sufficient number of silk cocoons of male and 

 female sex. After their exclusion, I allowed several pairs to 

 copulate, whilst I strictly separated and watched another quan- 

 tity of female moths, which I had already recognized as such in 

 the cocoons. Both the fertilized females and those which had 

 remained unfertilized, of which I had selected seven for observa- 

 tion, deposited a great quantity of eggs, all of which I submitted 

 to a very careful inspection. Almost all the eggs laid by the 



* See the Zoologist, 1848, p. 2269, and also Schleiden und Froricp's Xo- 

 tizen, 1849, band viii. p. 170- I presuppose that in the present case the eggs 

 were taken out of the ovaries, and not out of the oviduct, because otherwise, 

 after any preliminary copulation, such eggs might have been fecundated from 

 the seminal receptacle. 



H 



