1864.] 
455 
truth of the matter seems to he, that authors have been misled by the 
erroneous term “ neuters ”; and when they found a so-called neuter 
wasp or neuter humble-bee laying % eggs, have thought it necessary 
to call the insect by some other name, as if knowledge consisted in 
words and not in things. So far as my own limited experience goes, 
I believe that there are only three distinct types either in Apis, Bom- 
hus or Vespa, viz. l.s^. the large copulative 9 queen or founder of the 
nest generating both % % and 9 9 , 2 nd. the small agamous 9 or so- 
called neuter generating % % only, which in Apis is not only smaller 
than but structurally distinct from the first type, and Zrd. the % or 
drone. In a nest of Bomhus virginicus examined October 7, by Mr. 
Cresson, 30 9 9 were “all of the largest size,” i. e. about 12 lines, and 
38 workers or small 9 9“ ^^ lines.” {Proc. Ent. Soc. Phil. II, p. 
165.) And this coincides exactly with what I found to be the case in 
the only nest of Bomhus that I ever examined myself. I believe fur¬ 
ther, though the fact still remains to be proved, that the first of these 
three types is homologous with 9 spongifica, the second with the aga¬ 
mous 9 aciculata, and the third with S spongifica. And if this be 
correct, the old opinion that the working bee is not a distinct dimor¬ 
phous form but nothing but a mere stunted 9 ? is manifestly untenable; 
for 9 aciculata lives in exactly the same kind of gall as 9 spongifica, 
and one can be no more stunted than the other. Finally it is recorded 
that three generations of a moth {Hypogymna dispar) have been ob¬ 
tained without impregnation, “ the last of which consisted entirely of 
males,” (Westw. Intr, II, p. 384,) and it is notorious that in Aphis gene¬ 
ration after generation of* 9 9 produced by parthenogenesis, until the 
original impregnation may be supposed to have died out, when a gene¬ 
ration of 'S 'S comes into the world. All these facts seem to indicate, 
that when the fecundating S principle is absent, or rather when it has 
more or less partially died out, whatever is born is of the % sex. It is 
possible, of course, that aciculata 9 niay perform no generative function 
whatever, but both here and in the case of Apis and other social in¬ 
sects it seems difficult to understand, how any dimorphous type can 
subsist for an indefinite time without at least occasionally exercising 
some generative function. Like produces like, either in the next or in 
some succeeding generation, and if the type aciculata was uniformly 
sterile, it would surely in an indefinite number of ages tend to be elimi- 
