254 PARTHENOGENESIS VII 



of August are their generative organs fully developed, 

 and then they make their first approaches to the 

 females. Their proceedings are minutely described, 

 and it appears that they meet with many rebuffs from 

 the busily-occupied workers of the hive, and that it is 

 outside at a distance from the nest that their addresses 

 are at length accepted by those of the larger females 

 destined to become queens. Not all the large females 

 appear to have this destiny, and none appear to leave 

 the nest until all the brood has been brought through, 

 when (about the beginning of October) the nests 

 become deserted. Only a few flattened old virgin 

 wasps remain, who are killed off by the frosts, whilst 

 the young queens have married and sought out for 

 themselves winter quarters. Siebold distinguished 

 black-eyed and green-eyed drones, and speculates upon 

 the signification of this difference. 



Having ascertained these and other matters relat- 

 ing to the Polistes in far greater detail than we have 

 been able here to indicate them, Siebold was prepared 

 to make his experiment. In the nest from which he 

 wanted an answer to these questions, " Can unfertilised 

 Polistes females lay eggs which will develop ? " and if 

 so, " Of what sex will the parthenogenetically-produced 

 progeny be ? " he proceeded to destroy the queen and 

 all the eggs, larvae, and pupse in the cells with the 

 greatest care as late as possible in the season, so as to 

 have as large a colony as possible left, the limit of the 

 time being given by the date of the appearance of the 

 first drone. The queens thus taken were used for 

 careful histological study of the generative organs, and 



