SIEBOLD, ON PARTHENOGENESIS. 
225 
capable of reproduction ; but these viviparous Aphides indicated by Ov^en as 
virgin parents are certainly something very different from the oviparous 
Aphides in their virgin state before copulation. Tor the same reason 
also I cannot approve of Owen's expression Parthenogenesis, as applied by 
him to the alternation of generations, as under the term Parthenogenesis 
I do not understand reproduction by asexual nurse-like or larval creatures, 
but a reproduction by actual females, that is to say, by individuals furnished 
wuth perfectly developed, virgin female organs, which produce eggs capable 
of development without previous copulation and in an un fecundated 
condition." 
Altliougli tlie production of perfect insects from eggs de- 
posited by unimpregnated females^ had been suspected by pre- 
vious observers^ so large a number of observations bas never 
been recorded before as those now presented by Professor Von 
Siebold. After showing that this phenomenon must cer- 
tainly be regarded as true in a number of species of sac- 
bearing Lepidoptera^ belonging especially to the genus 
Psyche, he proceeds to give a detailed account of its exist- 
ence in the honey bee [Apis mellifica) . That worker-bees 
(the unfecundated females) and unfecundated queen-bees 
lay eggs which are capable of being hatched into drones or 
male bees^ has long been known or suspected to exist by 
those who keep bees, is proved by the statement of a bee- 
keeper (Dzierzon), who_, in 1849^ published an essay on the 
subject. In this essay, quoted by Siebold, he says — 
*' Therefore, and this must be well borne in mind, in the copulation of 
the queen, the ovary is not impregnated, but this vesicle or seminal 
receptacle is penetrated or filled by the male semen. By this, much, nay all 
of what was enigmatical is solved, — especially how the queen can lay fertile 
eggs in the early spring, when there are no males in the hives. The supply 
of semen received during copulation is sufl&cient for her whole life. The 
copulation takes place once for all. The queen then never flies out again, 
except when the whole colony removes. When she has begun to lay, 
we may, without scruple, cut off her wings ; she will still remain fertile 
until her death. But in her youth, every queen must have flown out 
at least once, because the fertilization only takes place in the air ; therefore 
no queen, which has been lame in her wings from birth, can ever be per- 
fectly fertile : I say, perfectly fertile, or capable of producing both sexes. 
Tor, to lay drone-eggs, according to my experience, requires no fecundation 
at all. This is exactly the new and peculiar point in my theory, which I at 
first only ventured to put forward as a hypothesis, but which has since been 
completely confirmed. Three young queens with imperfect wings have 
occurred during the past summer, and these, although, from the imper- 
fection of their wings, they could evidently never have taken the fertilizing 
flight, and also on dissection proved to be unfecundated, nevertheless laid 
drone-eggs. — By this, all the mysteries which we have hitherto vainly 
endeavoured to unriddle, are completely solved. In the first place the 
enigma : Why is it that many mothers — they may be either queens or 
workers in their form — are only capable of propagating the male sex or 
drones ? Because the former are either unfecundated, or their fertility is 
exhausted ; the latter, on the other hand, are incapable of fertilization." 
