Page:The Effect of External Influences upon Development.djvu/37

Rh male reproductive apparatus was normally developed. My experiment proves this fact more clearly than could have been done by anatomical investigation; and evidence is thus afforded that no part of the reproductive organs was degenerated in any degree by limiting the food during the larval period.

By comparing the result of this experiment with the known facts as to bees, the difference in the behaviour of the two organisms is made clear. In the case of bees a distinct degeneration of the ovaries and various accessory organs of reproduction takes place in consequence of poor nourishment; while in flies the whole reproductive apparatus is formed quite as perfectly when the nourishment of the larva is deficient as when it is ample. There is even no delay in the maturing of the eggs—as is shown by the fact that the first batch was laid at exactly the same time as in the case of the flies arising from normally fed larvae.

It might, however, be said that flies and bees are very different organisms, and therefore react differently to external influences. This is quite true, and is exactly what I wish to be acknowledged. My experiments with the flies were merely meant to show that all insects, even though they may resemble bees in some respects, do not react in a similar way to the bee to meagreness of nutrition, and that accordingly this mode if reaction is a characteristic of bees:—it is and was not possessed by the ancestors of these insects.

But nevertheless I cannot quite agree with the view of Eméry, a great authority on ants, who has recently