Animals and Plants. 307 



tioB of gerieratiou. Siebold by carefully iuvestigatiug the ob- 

 servations on PartLenogenesis in Insects, made by former natm-a- 

 iists, arrived at tbe conclusion tbat these observers were not suffi- 

 ciently guarded against possible deceptions, and that entymologists 

 had better reject them as inconclusive. He then shows that a 

 true Parthenogenesis does undoubtedly exist in Psyche Helix, 

 Solenobia clathrella, and licheuella, in Bombyx Mori, and Apis 

 mellifica, (the Honey-bee,) but is of opinion that it occurs among 

 insects in a much greater degree than we are at present able to 

 prove. He places in this cathegory the observations of Leon 

 Dufour, that he never was able to obtain a male Diplolepis gallaa 

 tinctorise, and alludes to the statement of Hartig, who examined 

 "©,000 to 10,000 individuals of Cynips divisa, and about 4000 of 

 Cynips folii, without even finding among them a single male. 

 The peculiar kind of reproduction observable in the lower 

 Crustacese, which some have attempted to explain as alternation 

 of generation or gemmation, may prove on closer investigation to 

 be a true Parthenogenesis. Amongst the Moluscs there are also 

 certain phenomena, which, may possibly be explained as phases of 

 a true Parthenogenesis, These allusions sufficiently show that 

 the catalogue of reproduction in animals by means of Partheno- 

 genesis, may look forward to considerable additions ; whilst the 

 doctrine hitherto generally received, that the development of 

 the ovum could take place solely under the direct influence of the 

 male principle, has received a shock, from which it is not likely 

 to recover. 



In the vegetable kingdom, authentic proofs of the existence of 

 a Parthenogenesis are much more abundant than they are in the 

 animal, Spallauzani, seems to have been the first who, 

 towards the close of last century, pointed out that the female 

 hemp did produce ripe seeds without the aid of pollen; but his 

 statement, though confirmed by the experiments of Bernhardi, 

 met with so much opposition tbat it could not obtain the acknow- 

 ledgment due to it; and it is only the recent observations of 

 Naudin in Paris, which, by confirming it still more, have at last 

 vindicated for it the character of an accurate and strictly correct 

 observation, Nor is it to be wondered at, that a fact, opposed to 

 so many theories looked upon as true laws of nature, should have 

 been received with the greatest distrust, and been, ex-cathedra, 

 absolutely denied. That subjective deception should somewhere 

 have taken place was a thought that readily suggested itself, as a 



