160 peAfect societies of insects, 



lowing sprincf. Schirach asserts, that in one season a 

 single female will lay from 70,000 to 100,000 eggs^. 

 Reaumur says, that upon an average she lays about 

 two hundred in a day, a moderate swarm consisting of 

 12,000, which are laid in two months ; and Huber, 

 that she lays above a hundred. All these statements, 

 the observations being made in different climates, and 

 perhaps under different circumstances, may be true. 

 The laying of worker eggs begins in February, some- 

 times so early as January''. After this, in the spring, 

 the great laying of male eggs commences, lasting- 

 thirty days ; in w hich time about 2,000 of these eggs 

 are laid. Another laying of them, but less .consider- 

 able, takes place in autumn. In the season ot ovipo- 

 sition, the queen may be discerned traversing, the 

 combs in all directions with a slow step, and seeking 

 for cells proper to receive her eggs. As she walks, she 

 keeps her head inclined, and seems to examine, one by 

 one, all the cells she meets with. When she finds one 

 to her purpose, she immediately gives to her abdomen 

 the curve necessary to enable it to reach the orifice of 

 the cell, and to introduce it within it. The eggs are 

 set in the angle of the pyramidal bottom of the cell, or 

 in one of the hollows formed by the conflux of the sides 

 of the rhombs, and, being besmeared with a kind of 

 gluten, stand upright. If, however, it be a female that 

 lays only male eggs, they are deposited upon the lowest 

 of the sides of the cell, as she is unable to reach the 

 bottom'^. 



While our prolific lady is engaged in this employ- 



= Schirach, 7. J3. " Ibid. 13. Thorley, 105. 



*^ Bonnet, x. 258, 8vo Ed. 



