428 Miscellaneous. 



sponge cast up on the shore at Worthing ; and on one occasion at 

 Torquay I found numerous specimens of Fodocerus pelagicus (Spence 

 Bate) in the Halichondria loanicea in which 1 was searching for Ex- 

 unguia stilipes. The Eev. A. M. Norman, in his British-Association 

 "Report (1868) of dredging among the Shetland Isles (see also 

 Report for 1867), mentions Anonyx tumidus (Kxoyev) as sometimes 

 occupying the branchial sac of an Ascidian, and sometimes making a 

 sponge its habitat. He also speaks of CapreUa linearis (Linn.) as very 

 abundant in Halse Hellyer, Burrafirth, among Tuhularia indivisa and 

 sponges, and of CapreUa lohata (Miiller) as being with the last, but 

 scarce. Of Atylus gibbosus he observes that it appears to live con- 

 stantly parasitic in sponges, in accordance with what has since been 

 my own experience of its habits. It would have been better, I now 

 think, to have referred Dexamine antarctica, mentioned in Mr. 

 Carter's paper, to the closely allied genus Atylus, both on account 

 of its agreement with A. gibbosus in the choice of a sponge for its 

 residence, and on account of its having, like that species, the meta- 

 carpus of exceptional length in all the pereiopoda. 



On the Oviposition of the Queen Bee and Dzierzori's Theory. 

 By M. J. Perez. 



According to a classical theory, which had its birth in Germany 

 and which no one now-a-days disputes, a fecundated egg of the 

 queen bee is a female egg, and aU unfecundated eggs are male. 

 The mother bee, it is said, can even lay at will an egg of one or the 

 other sex. This faculty, which is exceptional in the animal king- 

 dom, is explained by assuming that the bee, at the moment of the 

 passage of the egg into the oviduct, can apply to it or not a certain 

 quantity of the seminal fluid contained in the seminal receptacle. 

 Nevertheless the organization of the generative apparatus of the 

 bee does not differ essentially from that of the majority of female 

 insects, to which uo one has ever thought of ascribing the power of 

 acting at pleasure upon phenomena which seem to be absolutely 

 removed from the influence of the will. 



The hypothesis was set up mainly to explain the fact, which has 

 hitherto not been disputed, that an Italian female fecundated by a 

 German male furnishes hybrid females (workers and queens) and 

 pure Italian males. The opposite would be the case if a German 

 queen were fecundated by an Italian male : so that a male egg 

 would never receive the seminal baptism ; a drone would never 

 have a father. 



Now I possess at this moment a hive, the queen of which, the 

 daughter of an Italian of pure race, has been fecundated by a 

 French male. The workers, in fact, are partly true Italians, others 

 French, whilst others present a mixture, in various proportions, of 

 the characters of the two races. 



Being surprised to see in this hive certain drones, amongst others, 



