No. 587] VARIABILITY AND AMPHIMIXIS 



653 



tion upon calculation by Wright, Lee and Pearson ('07) 

 was found greater in the drones by a difference ranging 

 from 0.22 to 2.63 in respect to all five characters studied 

 in the single group of 50 Italian workers and 50 drones 

 of real value for comparative purposes. 



Kellogg ('06), in a preliminary paper dealing with 

 drones and workers of bees and also with female aphids, 

 concluded that not only was there no evidence that amphi- 

 mixis produced increased variability, but that it was an 

 unnecessary factor in the production of Darwinian varia- 

 tion. The results were summarized as follows : 



(a) In all but one of the characteristics studied, the amount of varia- 

 tion both quantitative and qualitative, is markedly larger among the 

 drone bees than among the workers, and in the one exceptional char- 

 acteristic it is no less; (&) no more variation in wing characters is 

 apparent among drones or workers that have not been exposed in 

 imaginal condition to the rigors of personal selection than exists among 

 bees, drones or workers, that have been so exposed; (c) the variation 

 in wing characters in drone bees reared in worker cells is no greater 

 than that among individuals reared among drone cells; (d) the varia- 

 tion among drones hatched from worker laid eggs is markedly larger 

 than that among drones hatched from queen laid eggs. . . ." 



Eleven "lots" were studied with a small number (No. 

 3, 48; No. 7, 54; No. 8, 75; No. 9, 26; No. 11, 60) in many 

 of the "lots." Even though the probable errors would 

 have been large and while the material was heterogene- 

 ous, the facts brought out are of extreme interest, par- 

 ticularly when considered with the results obtained by 

 Casteel and Phillips ('03). 



Wright, Lee and Pearson ('07) made a comparative 

 biometrical study of 129 queens, 130 drones, and 129 

 workers taken from a nest of the common wasp Vespa 

 vulgaris in Charterhouse, England. In connection with 

 the wing dimensions, the coefficient of variation was found 

 to be greatest in the worker, less in the drone, and least 

 in the queen, differing from the bee as noted above where 

 drones were more variable than workers. The conclu- 

 sion here of interest was : 



