40 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. L 



other might give rise to the nuclei of the rest of the em- 

 bryo. On this hypothesis the combined nuclei would give 

 rise to the female parts, while the single nucleus, here 

 derived from the sperm, would give rise to the male parts. 

 In support of such a view I pointed out that more than a 

 single nucleus was known to enter the egg of the bee, and 

 this condition has more recently been amply confirmed by 

 Nachtsheim. I also pointed out, for the first time I be- 

 lieve, that a decision in favor of one or the other of these 

 two hypotheses could be obtained if in these gynandro- 

 morph hybrids the nature of the male and of the female 

 parts of the adult were known; for on Boveri's interpre- 

 tation the male parts (derived from the single egg nu- 

 cleus) should be maternal while on my view the male parts 

 (derived from the single sperm nucleus) should be pa- 

 ternal. In both views the female parts of the gynandro- 

 morphs should be hybrid and therefore either intermediate 

 in character or like the dominant strain. 



Four years ago Professor Doflein looked through the 

 collection at Munich, at the request of Boveri, to find out 

 whether any of the Eugster bees were still preserved 

 there, and luckily found a jar labelled "Apis Mellifica, 

 Zwitterbienen" which turned out to be the bees that von 

 Siebold had obtained. Owing to their long sojourn in 

 alcohol the color was almost entirely gone and on the color 

 depended the decision as to the difference between the two 

 races that combined to produce the gynandromorphs. At 

 first Boveri despaired of finding out from these alcoholic 

 specimens whether the male parts were like the father or 

 like the mother ; but on cleaning the parts he found that 

 he could still determine whether a part was more like the 

 same part in one or in the other domesticated strain. 



Briefly Boveri finds that the male parts of the gynandro- 

 morphs are maternal, while the female parts are paternal, 

 which is the dominant character. This conclusion gives a 

 decisive answer in favor of his hypothesis and sets my 

 own aside for this case at least. 



Boveri's evidence leaves no reasonable doubt as to the 

 possibility of determining the nature of the character of 



