subscription to them is extremely moderate, one guinea per annum; and, as they are purely publishing societies, and do not held periodical meetings for the reading of papers and discussion, the subscriber in the country has the full benefit of their operations. Generally one or more elaborately illustrated monographs arc issued by each Society every year, exceeding in cost the amount of the subscriptions, as these have frequently been supplemented by considerable pecuniary assistance from the learned authors, who also devote their time and knowledge to the preparation of the works gratuitously.
It appears to me that the individual members, or associations of them, of an organisation like this, who are scattered over a wide area, varying in its flora, fauna, and geological conditions, might turn to profitable account the peculiar opportunities afforded by their several districts in determining many unsettled problems in Natural History. What these problems are I must leave to the decision of such of you as are skilled in the various branches of science; but I will venture to suggest one as an illustration of the kind to which I refer; What is that which determines the sexes of Bees? Is the sex an inherent quality of the bees, or is it modified in the development of the larva by circumstances? Bees, always excepting their stings, afford very favourable opportunities of studying this question; and the knowledge we already possess of some of the peculiarities of the development of the one sex may help us in that of the other. Sebirach, and afterwards Huber, taught us that the working bee is an imperfectly developed female, ant to make the perfect female from the egg, which, deposited in a worker's cell, would have produced a working bee, nothing more is necessary than sufficient room for ins development, and special food during its growth from a certain stage. It appears » natural question to ask, if a modification of this kind will change a neuter into a perfect female bee, will a modification of another kind, that is, the peculiar size of the drone cell, and some unsolved treatment in nutrition, cause the egg to become a drone, which, deposited elsewhere, and treated otherwise, would have become a worker or a queen? It does not seem unreasonable to suppose that the determination of sex is only a question of room and nutriment, when we not only find these influences have such an effect in the arrested and perfected development of the female in bees, but we know that in mammals there is a period in the fœtal growth when the sex is nob determined, and the fœtus may be called bisexual; and it is only at a further stage that the growth of the organ of the one sex is arrested, and that of the other developed.
Possibly this problem has been solved, but in my limited reading on the subject I have not met with its solution; however, solved or not, if will serve my purpose of suggesting a class of problems upon which the united power of the organisation may be usefully employed. As difficulties occur in the course of the investigations of individual members, they should be by them brought wider the notice of the members of the Union generally, by publication in the "Midland Naturalist," when the investigations can be taken up by such as have the special opportunities of observation requisite, with (he probable result of a satisfactory solution in many cases.
