110 



Selections. 



[no. 5j new series, 



of the present opportunity to remove about 1,200 middle-aged 

 Oysters (which the renter gave me) to Yard Cove in Trincomalie 

 harbour, where the muddy bottom promises to be suitable for breed- 

 ing them. But the experiment should be made on a larger scale, 

 to test the full value of translating these Oysters to new localities ; 

 this I am not able to do from want of funds to meet the necessary 

 expenses. I have already, in my former Report on the Natural 

 History of Pearl Oysters, reported, that some of the Oysters, which 

 were placed in other parts of the sea in May last, are still living, 



SELECTIONS. 



On a true Parthenogenesis in Moths and Bees ; a Contribution to the 

 History of Reproduction in Animals. By Carl Theodor Ernst 

 Von Siebold, Professor of Comparative Anatomy in the Uni- 

 versity of Munich. Translated by Wm. Dallas, F. L. S., &c. 

 &c. London: Van Voorst. 1857. 8vo, pp. 110.* 



Among the many revelations of modern science, 'few have attract- 

 ed more attention, or excited greater interest among naturalists, 

 than the phenomena of Parthenogenesis ; whether, with Owen, we 

 regard this term as the appropriate designation of the alternation 

 of dissimilar generations ; or, with Siebold (and this, in our opi- 

 nion, is the more correct), we restrict its application to the pro- 

 duction of offspring " sine concubitu" from perfectly formed mo- 

 thers. With regard to the former, Chamisso, as early as the year 

 1819, found in the Salpae (a group of tunicated molluscs) that 

 many species which are associated in long chains give birth to in- 

 sulated individuals, which in their turn produce concatenated off- 

 spring ; and these remarkable observations have been confirmed 



* Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science, May 1857, p. 403. 



