1852.] 49 



Dirhagus rufipes Mels. Pr. Ac. Nat. Sc. 2, 150. The front is said to 

 be longitudinally impressed, which is an unusual character in Fornax. 



Eucnemis muscidusand unicolor, Say, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 6, 186. {Elater 

 m. &M. An. Lye. 1,255,) are Perothops mucidus Erichson Germ. Zeitsch. 

 3, 117. The genus Perothops is of difficult location. It cannot be placed in the 

 present group on account of its prominent, not inflexed mouth. From the typi- 

 cal Elaters it differs by its clypeus dilated in front, and concealing the labrum, 

 and by the absence of an anterior lobe on the prosternum. It seems most na- 

 tural to consider it as a special group connecting Anelastes among the Eucnemi- 

 des, with the more typical Elaters. 



[Note. On p. 345 of the last number of this work, (Dec. 1851), the name 

 puncticollis occurs twice in the genus Podabrus. The first of these (at 

 the top of the page), should read Podabrus poricollis.] 



The Committee on the Rev. Mr. Langstroth's paper on the '' Impreg- 

 nation of the Eggs of the Queen Bee," reported in favor of publication 

 in the Proceedings. 



On the Impregnation of the Eggs of the Queen Bee, 

 By Rev. Lorenzo L. Langstroth. 



Many singular notions have prevailed respecting the generation of bees. 

 Virgil* asserted that bees have no sexual intercourse, but gather young from 

 the leaves of plants. New colonies, he thought, could be obtained from the 

 carcasses of animals. Swammerdam, in his observations on bees, made in 

 1673, proved, by careful dissection, that the bee commonly called the King, is a 

 female, and the mother of the whole colony, and that the drone is the male bee. 

 He thought that a seminal atmosphere proceeded from the drones and caused the 

 impregnation of the female, or as she is commonly called, the Queen. 



Maraldi (1712) conjectured that the eggs of the Queen were fecundated by 

 the drones after being laid in the cells. Arthur Dobbs (Philosophical Trans- 

 actions, vol. 46 for 1760) was, I believe, the first who suggested that the Queen 

 may have a sperma-theca, from the contents of which the eggs are impregnated. 

 Debraw (Phil. Transac. vol. 67 for 1777) imagined that he saw drones deposit- 

 ing semen in cells containing eggs. Both Huber and Dr. John Hunter have 

 shown that he was mistaken. The latter supports the theory of Dobbs, and 

 endeavors to strengthen it by some curious experiments which he made on the 

 impregnation of the eggs of the silk-worm. (Phil. Transac. vol. 82 for 1792.) 

 Huber* (1788) was the first to demonstrate that the sexual union of the Queen 

 and drone takes place when the insects are on the wing, in the open air ; and that 

 a Queen, when impregnated, will continue, at least for several years, to lay fertile 

 eggs without any further intercourse with the male. He thought that she was 

 impregnated for life, but he was not able even to conjecture how all the eggs in 

 her ovary could be at once fecundated. Dzierzon, a German apiarian of great 

 practical knowledge, has revived (1845) the notion of a permanently impreg- 

 nated sperma-theca. He says that he has dissected Queen bees both before and 

 after impregnation, and that he has found the seminal sac in the first case to con- 

 tain a limpid fluid like water, and in the second case to be filled with a substance 

 resembling the semen of the drone. This would seem almost to settle the 

 question; but unfortunately he advances a conjecture which seems to be at 

 variarice with the idea that he had much skill in dissecting. He thinks that 

 what is the poison sac in the worker becomes the sperma-theca sac in the 



Aristotle informs us that some cultivators called the^rulers or kings, mothers, and the 

 drones, males, 



t Hattorf and Schirach (1770) beUeved that the Queen was self-impregnated ; and 

 the latter accounted for the existence of males by conjecturing that their semen formed 

 the food of the young bee. 



7 



