447 
GENESIS, OR PARTHENOGENESIS ? 
exemplification we may refer to the attempt of M. Barthelemy 
(“ Annales des Sciences Naturelles," 1859) to account for Par- 
thenogenesis by assuming the existence of ova more com- 
plete (!) thau the ordinary kind, uniting in themselves the 
male and female principle, the fecundating and fecundated 
germ ; in one word, hermaphrodite — eggs ! 
Let us, then, examine first the anatomical basis of Parthe- 
nogenesis. The result of Owen's investigations was as follows : 
that the successive larva are developed from cells derived 
from the original germ substance of the ovum from which the 
first larva was produced. The proliferous germ cell of the 
ovum is not exhausted in the production of the first larva, 
and “ some of the derivative germ-cells may remain unchanged 
and become included in that body which has been composed 
of their metamorphosed and diversely combined or confluent 
brethren. So included any derivative germ-cell, or the nucleus 
of such, may commence and repeat the same process of growth 
by imbibition and of propagation by spontaneous fission as 
those to which itself owed its origin, followed by metamor- 
phoses and combinations of the germ -mass so produced, which 
concur to the development of another individual ; and this may 
or may not be like that individual in which the secondary 
germ-cell or germ-mass was included." 
We are here thrown back again on the question of difference 
between ff egg" and germ." If the Aphis germ-stock be the 
analogue of an ovary, the insect is so far sexed (being in 
possession of ovarian chambers, tube and ova) as to be en- 
titled to the designation female. If the granular mass, whose 
derivation from the germinal vesicle of the original egg is 
rather assumed than proved, grows by imbibition and pro- 
pagates by spontaneous fission, the process is more nearly 
allied to gemmation than generation, and the insect in 
that case is sexless. Now Owen did not hesitate to accept 
the granular mass found within the larval body as proliferating 
embryo germs the direct product of an egg, and he specially 
refers to the propagation of single-celled infusoriae {monad, gre- 
garina) by division of their nucleus in support of his view. 
The recent discoveries of Balbiani, to which we have already 
alluded, certainly support Owen's idea of the true ovoid charac- 
ter of the Aphis germ-mass, though these researches set aside 
his anatomical details. Owen observed the germs of the 
viviparous larvae in the embryos near the digestive sac, 
before any organs had been formed round them, and regards 
them, when included as they afterwards are in tubes which 
correspond to oviducts, as comparable to the germ-mass in 
its minutest state of division and as differing from ova in 
the absence of the germinal cell. This admitted absence of 
