696 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 622. 



sexual parentage). — The honey-bee, Apis 

 mellifica, is an insect with complete meta- 

 morphosis. The larvae are footless, soft- 

 bodied, white grubs which are born from eggs 

 laid in cells, and which live for their whole 

 life protected and cared for in the cells, those 

 of any one community living under identical 

 conditions of light and temperature and pre- 

 sumably of food and care. Even those of 

 different communities have practically an 

 identical environment. The larvae pupate in 

 the cells and the imaginal bees issue with 

 wings, legs and numerous other structures 

 wholly formed and in definitive character, and 

 not corresponding to any functional larval 

 parts. The variations, therefore, in the wings 

 — ^to select structures particularly available 

 for quantitative comparison, and wholly for- 

 eign to the larval body as functional parts, 

 i. e., parts capable of use or subject to disuse 

 — ^must be looked on as variations as strictly 

 congenital and independent of modifying ex- 

 trinsic influences {i. e., without trace of modi- 

 fications acquired during development due to 

 varying environment) as it is possible to find 

 among animals. The wings, also, are struc- 

 tures possessed by all the three kinds of indi- 

 viduals composing the honey-bee species, and 

 in all three kinds function identically, so that 

 any variations the wings may exhibit can not 

 be attributed to differences in the special 

 function of the wings in the different kinds 

 of individuals, but may be safely associated 

 with the other general features in the make- 

 up of each kind of individual, and be referred 

 to as fair indicators of the kind and extent 

 of variation characteristics of the different 

 kinds of individuals. 



The right and left fore and hind wings 

 (removed and mounted on glass slides) of 

 various lots of drones and workers were ex- 

 amined and measured for variations in (a) 

 modifications of the normal (= modal) vena- 

 tion, consisting of the addition of vein spurs 

 in * slight,' * fair ' or ' marked ' condition, and 

 interpolated new incomplete or complete cells; 

 (J)) dimensions, as length and breadth of the 

 whole wing, and length of vein-parts, these 

 parts determined by the giving off of branches 



in the insertion of cross-veins; and (c) the 

 number of grasping hooks along the costal 

 margin of the hind wings. 



The lots studied were: (1) a lot of 300 

 Italian drones taken from a laboratory hive, 



(2) a lot of 300 workers taken from same hive, 



(3) a lot of 48 Italian drones from a field hive, 



(4) a lot of 300 workers from this hive, (5) a 

 lot of 100 German workers from another field 

 hive, (6) a lot of 200 Italian drones from a 

 field hive which were taken from their brood 

 cells when just ready to issue, (7) a lot of 

 54 Italian workers from the laboratory hive 

 taken from brood cells, (8) a lot of 25 Italian 

 workers taken from cells and 50 workers act- 

 ing as nurses (not yet having ventured from 

 the hive) from a field hive, (9) a lot of 26 

 Italian drones from a field hive, taken from 

 worker cells, (10) a lot of 200 drones from a 

 queenless field hive (these drones hatched from 

 worker-laid eggs and reared in worker ceils), 

 and (11) a lot of 60 Italian drones from 

 worker eggs in worker cells taken from the 

 cells at time of emergence. The lots of indi- 

 viduals taken from the brood cells just when 

 ready to emerge (in fully formed imaginal 

 condition with all wing-parts fully developed 

 and in fixed definitive condition) were ob- 

 tained for the purpose of ascertaining what 

 difference, if any, exists in the amount of 

 variation (in venation of wings) between bees 

 exposed to the struggle for existence and bees 

 not yet so exposed. If selection is really 

 rigorous and intra-specific, that is, if varying 

 individuals are preserved or extinguished on 

 a basis of rigorous selecting among these 

 variations, then one would expect that a series 

 of individuals of any one species examined 

 after exposure to this rigorous individual 

 selection would show less variation than a 

 series of individuals of the same species not 

 yet exposed to this personal selection. The 

 unexposed series should reveal the total amount 

 of the variation characteristic of the species; 

 the exposed series should reveal the amount 

 of variation tolerated by a rigorous intra- 

 specific selection. Also, as the workers in 

 their constant going and coming outside the 

 hive, carrying heavy loads of pollen, and ex- 



