116 



Selections. 



[NO. b, NEW SERIES, 



There was some difficulty in procuring drone-eggs for the pur- 

 pose of examination, as the season was late ; however, as Baron v. 

 Berlepsch spared neither trouble nor his hives (of which he had 

 104 in his bee colony), twenty-seven drone eggs were procured, 

 and of these the author states : — 



" I examined these twenty-seven drone-eggs, which might have been 

 about twelve hours old, and which agreed perfectly both in their appear- 

 ance and organization with the female eggs, with the same care and by the 

 same method, with which I had treated the female eggs, and did not find 

 one seminal filament in any single egg, either externally or internally." 



Three of these only were unsuccessfully prepared, and the same 

 queen, both before and afterwards, laid eggs from which worker 

 bees were developed. 



In the latter part of his work, Siebold enters on the considera- 

 tion of the occurrence of true parthenogenesis in the silkworm 

 moth, and details some very interesting observations on these in- 

 sects. On a patient review of this subject, we can hardly with- 

 hold our assent from the propositions laid down by the author, 

 and these views are considerably enforced by the strange facts de- 

 tailed by other observers in regard to the prevalence and the ab- 

 sence of one or other sex among insects. Leon Dufour has stated, 

 for example, that he never obtained a male insect of Diplolepis 

 galloe tinctorum, of the genus Cynips. 



A priori we should say, that this was a topic from which we could 

 expect nothing of practical utility of industrial application, and 

 yet we are told that Dzierzon and other in the bee colonies have 

 turned it to material advantage. 



[The importance of the results contained in Von Siebold's work, induc- 

 ed Professor Goodsir, of Edinburgh to communicate an abstract to the 

 Royal Society. Mr. Dallas, soon afterwards puulished an able translation 

 of the work itself.] — Ed. M. J. 



