ORGANS OF THE QUEEN. 223 



(allowing, for the sake of the argument, that 

 her mother has produced none), and, as a con- 

 sequence, the workers, her progeny, will partake of 

 the qualities of the two races, exhibiting among 

 themselves those variations for which hybrids are 

 remarkable. But her drones, on the contrary, will still 

 be absolutely Italian, again showing that, although 

 their mother was impregnated, her impregnation had 

 in no way influenced their generation, or that they, 

 as before, had a mother but no father; so that the 

 eggs whence they came had in some way escaped 

 fertilisation. Almost all apiculturists have had abun- 

 dant evidence of a kindred kind ; but it was the 

 introduction of Apis Ligustica into Silesia, in 1S53, 

 which gave Dzierzon the first incontestable proof of 

 the parthenogenetic production of the drone. Yet 

 further evidence is given by the occasional appear- 

 ance of fertile workers, whose existence has been 

 previously referred to, which, from their anatomical 

 structure, are incapable of coition. These, never- 

 theless, deposit eggs which, for reasons now evident, 

 produce drones only. The conclusion cannot be 

 evaded, that, in the genus Apis, where the least- 

 developed form would appear to be the drone, the 

 egg is already sufficiently vitalised for giving him 

 birth when it has reached maturity in the ovary, 

 but it requires the concurrence of the male sperma- 

 tozoa to produce the female, the most highly endowed 

 and oro-anised of the sexes amongst the Hymenoptera. 

 Our normally mated queen, then, according to season 

 and the necessity of the colony, deposits eggs, either 

 in the smaller cells, yielding workers, or in the 



