AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. 245 



He had hardly made known his first opinion, when 

 he himself observed similar phenomena to those 

 pointed out by his predecessors, and these not only 

 in Psyche, but in many kindred species.* At the 

 same time he learned that the problem of ova fertile 

 without fertilization had been actively discussed for 

 four years previously by the numerous bee-culturists 

 of Germany. 



In fact, in 1845, M. Zierzon, a curate of Carlsmark, 

 in Silesia, an unscientific man, but gifted with great 

 powers of observation, put forward certain propo- 

 sitions, which caused a division between the various 

 journals and societies then interested in the practical 

 study of bees. Zierzon asserted that the queen-bee 

 whilst preserving its virginity deposited ova, which, 

 however, gave rise to males only. He supposed, with 

 Huber, that this queen received only on one occasion 

 the fecundating fluid to be employed during the entire 

 period of her existence — that is to say, for several 

 years; he added, that the queen-bee could employ 

 this fluid as she wished, so as either to favour or 

 prevent its contact with the ovum about to be de- 

 posited. In the first, said Zierzon, the ovum is 

 fertilized, and produces a female ; in the second, the 

 same result follows as if the queen had remained 

 in her virgin state, and the ovum produces only a 



male.t 



Among the facts adduced by Zierzon and by 

 Berlepsch, who was the first to maintain and confirm 



* In Psyche helix and in Solenobia lichenella and S. triquetrella. 



t Zierzon's researches were published in two apicultural jour- 

 nals for which we might now seek in vain all over Germany, but 

 they have been carefully analyzed in Siebold's work. 



