64 



NATURE 



\^Nov. 19, 1 1 



heading "World: Atlas: Modern," p. 4491, where will be 

 found probably the most complete list of Mercator's atlases 

 extant, ranging from 1495 to 1636. 



At the meeting of the Geographical Society of Paris on the 

 6th instant, M. Germain, who presided, pronounced a eulogium 

 on Milne-Edwards. M. Duveyrier called attention to a report 

 addressed to the Spanish Government by Capt. Bonelli, relative 

 to the Spanish possessions on the West Coast of Africa, according 

 to which it appeared that the writer claimed on behalf of Spain 

 nearly a hundred kilometres of the coast belonging to the French 

 in Senegal. A letter was read describing the departure from 

 Buenos Ayres of M. Thouar on a new expedition to complete 

 his work on the Pilcomayo. A note was read from M. Venukoff 

 on the recent incidents of Russian geographical exploration. 

 M. Chaffaujon described his late explorations in the basin of the 

 Orinoco, to which we have already made frequent reference. 



The current number of Pclerinaiin 5 Milthciliiiigcn has for its 

 first article a lengthy communication by Dr. Theodor Fischer on 

 the development of coasts. His conclusion is as follows : — 

 Wherever the sea by breakers and currents has exercised a pre- 

 ponderating influence on the form and development of coasts, 

 whether flat or precipitous, the line of coast takes the form of a 

 succession of arcs, in the case of steep coasts with a short, and 

 of flat coasts with a long, radius ; where the coasts exhibit other 

 features than these, although the action of the sea be not wholly 

 excluded, yet other causes, especially tectonic alterations in the 

 surface and movements of the earth's crust, are more powerful 

 or are very recent. Herr Langhaus gives a map of the 

 Cameroon Mountains, with an accompanying description, con- 

 taining a short sketch of recent exploration in the region. Dr. 

 Boas writes on the topography of Hudson's Bay and Hudson's 

 Straits, with a map ; and Herr Wichmann describes the new 

 republic in South Africa, also with a small but remarkably clear 

 map by Dr. Havernick. The usual geographical and critical 

 notes and lists conclude the number. 



M. Eugene Aubert has been charged by the Ministry of 

 Public Instruction with a scientific mission to the basin of the 

 Amazon. 



BEES AND OTHER HOARDING INSECTS^ 

 Their Specialisation into Females, Males, ami IVofkers 

 TN discussing the differentiation of bees into females, males, 

 and workers, I shall have no need to call your attention to 

 any new discoveries in the world of wonders among those 

 minute creatures that we have had with us for all ages, and 

 whose life we are just now beginning faintly to understand. My 

 illustrations will be drawn mainly from other orders, in which it 

 will be impossible for me to make a mistake without its being 

 readily seen by some of the general public as well as the 

 specialists. 



The limits of this paper will not permit elaborate definitions, 

 or fine discriminations, and I have therefore to ask that you will 

 kindly make your own definitions, taking care to give to my 

 words in general the narrowest sense compatible with the use to 

 which I apply them. 



From the creatures and the plants, that man has domesticated 

 for his use, we have learned nearly all of the lessons in heredity, 

 which we have no good reason to unlearn, and my first illustra- 

 tion shall be from one of these, the barn yard fowl. 



If we mate a Black Spanish fowl with a Buff Cochin, and 

 hatch out the eggs as the bees do theirs, in an incubator, till ue 

 have a hundred chicks, among these we shall find a very great 

 diversity. Some when fully grown will be nearly, if not quite, 

 as heavy as the Buff Cochin, and some will weigh little, if any, 

 more than the Black Spanish. Their respective weights will 

 probably vary between those natural to their sex in the two 

 varieties to which their progenitors belong, but much the larger 

 number will be very nearly half way between. And as colour 

 is not necessarily correlated with weight, it is quite possible that 

 the heaviest chick will be the blackest ; that is to say, that he 

 may take his colour almost entirely from one parent, and his 

 weight and form from the other. In colour every one of the 

 hundred chicks will, when fully grown, be in some degree dis- 

 tinguished from every other ; and if we take colour, size and 

 form together for our guide, there will not be one among the 



whole number that we cannot readily distinguish from every 

 other. Now this particular cross from the great difference in 

 size, form and colour of the parent stock enables us to see very 

 clearly a fact which the closest and most careful investigation 

 shows to be a general law. It is this : 



All offspring are variable by heredity. An J under some circum • 

 stances the variations are 7vide. 



Nearly every youth, who has amused himself with an 

 aquarium, knows that he can dwarf his fish if he chooses to do 

 so. Other things being equal, the weight of a fish depends 

 upon the amount of food it is allowed to consume. This vari- 

 ability is so great among fishes, that of two as nearly alike as 

 possible, either one may be fed so that he shall exceed a pound 

 in weight, before the other, receiving very little food, shall turn 

 the scale at an ounce. 



Thus insufficiency of food affects the development of all 

 organs. All breeders of animals have some knowledge of this 

 fact as applied to their own business, and of which our fish 

 merely affords a striking example. It is an inevitable deduction, 

 that when the food is of the general quality which is suitable for 

 the due nourishment of all the organs but is insufficient in 

 amount, the stronger organs, if such there be, will take more 

 than their share, and the weaker oigans will go to the wall. 

 From this matter of food supply we have a general law, which 

 may be stated as follows : 



Living creatures are variable from the amount and quality of 

 their food. And among some orders the limits of this variation 

 are wide. 



It is scarcely necessary for me to go into the fact that the 

 insects, being exposed to more extreme vicissitudes than the 

 larger orders of animal life, are much more variable in almost 

 every respect. It will be interesting, however, and it may be 

 instructive in the line of our inquiry, to point out some powers of 

 variation in sex in a very common plant, which, while they are 

 very much greater than those of the bee, have some points of 

 striking resemblance. 



Indian corn is pictured to the unobserving mind as a plant 

 bearing something good to eat at the side and a tassle on the 

 top. The botanist tells us that the tassle on the top is a male 

 plant, that at the side is a female plant or perhaps more than 

 one, that all these are joined upon one stalk, and that the some- 

 thing good to eat is the product of the female plant, fertilized 

 by the pollen of the male. All this is fact as far as it goes ; but 

 it gives us no conception of the whole truth. 



On going into the field in bloom we find that nearly all of the 

 stalks have tassels on the top ; they are male plants. In a good 

 field we shall find perhaps half of them with reproductive 

 females at the side, say two good ears of corn to a hill. There 

 are, therefore, nearly twice as many perfect males as there are 

 of perfect females. We find also that the undeveloped females 

 are very numerous — from one to half a dozen on a stalk. And a 

 close examination shows that the number of females that become 

 developed is .almost entirely a matter of food. Such an investi- 

 gation shows also some plants bearing only a female on the 

 stalk and some that are entirely undeveloped in both sexes. 



Thus in our field of Indian corn we have male stalks, male 

 and female stalks, female stalks, neuter stalks. And the stalks 

 that bear developed male and developed female individuals all 

 have (a) a male individual on the top, (i5) one, two, or three 

 females at the side, {c) one to six undeveloped females at the 

 side, and possibly with, possibly instead of these {c) they may 

 have {d) one to half a dozen buds and germs of females at the 

 side. 



If, when the corn is ripe, we go with the farmer and gather a 

 basketful, we shall invariably find that on each ear there are 

 kernels less perfectly developed than others, and we shall have 

 every reason to believe that in the basketful there are some 

 kernels that could not reproduce, that some kernels would repro- 

 duce but would, under the most favourable circumstances, give 

 but imperfect offspring, and that there would be a very wide 

 range in the degrees of the imperfection of the plants produced 

 from these imperfect kernels. 



As a matter of fact, the farmer in planting, selects with care 

 the most perfect ears, and the most perfect parts only of the ears 

 so selected, and yet we have the males, the females, and the 

 neuters or the undeveloped foi the result as I have described 

 them. 



Indian corn is so extremely variable in this matter of sex, 

 that careful experimenting in this direction would' be likely to 

 give most interesting results in a single lifetime. 



