AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. 



243 



CHAPTER XX. 



PARTHENOGENESIS, OR VIRGINAL REPRODUCTION 



FUNDAMENTAL FACTS. 



We have seen that, definitively, every animal springs 

 from an ovum, and that, mediately or immediately, 

 it has invariably not only a parent, but even a true 

 mother. 



Is the father's existence as fully demonstrated ? 

 This is a question which the recent progress of 

 science puts to us so forcibly, that it cannot be over- 

 looked* 



When opposing Owen's views some six years since, 

 I said that the expression parthenogenesis would cling 

 to science, and be employed to designate a certain 

 number of exceptional phenomena, very imperfectly 

 known, but whose real existence seemed to me un- 



* In thelast century, an inspector-general of the silkworm-nurseries 

 of Sardinia, named Constant de Castellet, having seen in the silk- 

 worm analogous processes to those we are now considering, wrote to 

 Reaumur, asking him to examine them. Reaumur only replied, ex 

 nihilo nihil. Castellet could not believe in the reality of his own 

 observations, and therefore fancied himself deceived. We learn 

 from this anecdote, which is borrowed from Dareste's excellent 

 article, written three years ago, in the " Revue germanique," that 

 Reaumur was unacquainted with Malpighfs observations, and that 

 he acted in this instance as he had done in Peysonnel's case. 

 Castellet was less persevering than our fellow-countryman, and 

 thus relinquished the glory of a discovery which was only confirmed 

 a century after his observations. 



R 2 



