482 AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 



The belief in a Parthenogenesis or Lucina sine conculitu is by no mep ns of recent 

 growth, but has arrested the attention of mankind since the earliest ages. In diving 

 into the writings of the Classics, and studying the mythology of the Greeks, it 

 will be found more than once indicated; and in searching the pages of ancient 

 naturalists of a subsequent period, the subject frequently meets our eye ; but the 

 observations upon which such statements were founded, are of no value for the 

 purpose of modern science. 



It is different with the publications that in more recent times have been forced 

 upon our attention, and which, having been made with all the caution, circumspec- 

 tion and accuracy demanded by modern criticism, have in the opinion of many 

 eminent naturalists, completely established the fact, that there exist occasionally 

 individual females of both animals and plants, which, in a state of virginity are 

 able to propogate their respective species. ¥e have no modern observations 

 proving the existence of a Lucina sine concubitu in any of the higher animals, — 

 at least I am not aware of any, — but few are inclined to doubt that Professor Von 

 Siebold's works, " On Parthenogenesis in Moths and Bees," have set this question 

 at rest as regards Insects. It is well known that Professor Richard Owen, applied 

 the term Parthenogenesis, some years ago, to the non-sexual reproduction observ- 

 able in the genus Aphis, but that process being merely one of gemmation, a bud- 

 ding process, equivalent to what we see in the sprouting of a plant, it is now 

 generally rejected, and Siebold and others always understand by Parthenogenesis 

 the Lucina sine concubitu of ancient Naturalists, and therefore lay great stress 

 upon the distinction of true Parthenogenesis and alternation of generation. Siebold 

 by carefully investigating the observations on Parthenogenesis in Insects, made by 

 former naturalists, arrived at the conclusion that these observers were not sufficiently 

 guarded against possible deceptions, and that entomologists had better reject them 

 as inconclusive. He then shows that a true Parthenogenesis doe3 undoubtedly 

 exist in Psyche Helix, Solenobia clathrella, and lichenelia, 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 

 category the observations of Leon Dufour, that he never was able to obtain a 

 male Diplolepis gallee tinctarise, and alludes to the statement of Hartig, who ex- 

 amined 9,000 to 10,000 individuals of Cynips divisa, and about 4,000 of Cynips 

 folii, without ever finding among them a single male. The peculiar kind of repro- 

 duction observable in the lower Crustacea?, which some have attempted to explain 

 as alternation of generation or gemmation, may prove on closer investigation to be 

 a true Parthenogenesis. Amongst the Molluscs 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 Parthenogenesis, may be expected to receive considerable additions ; whilst the 

 doctrine hitherto generally received, that the developement 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 Partheno- 

 genesis are much more abundant than they are in the animal. Spallanzini, seems 

 to have been the first who, towards the close of the last century, pointed out that 

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

 ment, though confirmed by the experiments of Bernhardi, met with so much 

 opposition that it could not obtain the acknowledgment due to it ; and it is only 



