The Origin and Transformation of Animals. 107 



development without male intervention belongs to the pheno- 

 mena which we have been studying, and that we have thus 

 not parthenogenesis but geneagenesis." 



Regarding no object as a veritable egg which does not 

 possess the Purkinje vesicle, and the Wagner spot, M. Quatre- 

 fages considers that cases of parthenogenesis will be greatly 

 diminished, but he is convinced they will not be entirely obli- 

 terated from the booh of science. He admits, without, as he 

 says, going as far as Huxley, Owen, and Lubbock, that there 

 exist "intermediaries " between eggs and buds, but after all 

 reservations, " parthenogesis is not in his eyes a constant fact." 

 He admits that there exist "true females laying veritable eggs 

 which develope themselves without male intervention in any 

 way whatever ;" but he thinks these phen*omena are supposed 

 to be much more frequent than is really the case, and that re- 

 production by females only, tends to exhaust itself, and that 

 " always, the intervention of the male, recurring at a given 

 moment, as a necessary element in the perpetuity of species, is 

 evidently one of the great laws of nature. " The father is thus 

 " as necessary as the mother for the indefinite duration of species, 

 and the point of departure for a cycle of generations is not 

 only an egg, but a fertilized egg." Parthenogenesis is then 

 " only a particular case of geneagenesis. 1 " 



We cannot now follow M. Quatrefages through the vegetable 

 kingdom in which he pursues his theme, but we may observe 

 that philosophers, who require every step in an inductive process 

 of reasoning to be strictly proved, will hesitate before they 

 affirm with him that ' ' a father and a mother — that is a male and 

 a female — such is the origin of every living being." They will 

 likewise prefer a frank confession of ignorance as to how and 

 why the characteristics of individuals descend to their posterity, 

 to the assertion that " an essence proper to the character of 

 each being " is received from its ancestors and transmitted to 

 its posterity. All, however, will allow that M. Quatrefages has 

 produced an admirably written and learned work, which sup- 

 plies the profoundest naturalist with deep matter for investi- 

 gation and thought, while from the elegance of the language 

 and the clearness of the style, it is admirably adapted for 

 popular use. 



