246 GEO. H. BISHOP 
B. Physiology 
1. The secretions. The content of the mucous gland is elabo- 
rated first in the distal end, and tends to collect there throughout 
the process of elaboration; the thinning of the glandular wall 
allows of considerable distention of this distal end to its character- 
istic bulbous shape, and nutriment is evidently absorbed actively 
by the organ, for it increases in size until the stage F (nine days). 
The secretion changes in character from fluid to viscous, and 
aquires increasingly the property of immediately coagulating to 
a tough, cheesy or doughy mass. This happens on contact with 
air, water, Ringer’s solution, alcohol, lymph from the drone’s 
abdomen, or any bland reagent in which an attempt was made 
to mix or dissolve it. It shrinks markedly in fixation and dehy- 
dration, and, especially when taken from an old drone or from the 
exposed organ removed from the female after copulation, it 
becomes so hard as to nick the microtome knife. It is slightly 
alkaline in reaction. 
Spermatic fluid removed from the seminal vesicle consists 
of very little lymph-like fluid densely packed with sperms. This 
is so dense that it will barely drop from a needle. The sperms 
being attached to the vesicle wall, it takes an appreciable time 
for them to loosen when the vesicle is freshly torn under a micro- 
scope. Up to the stage E (five days) they have to be squeezed 
loose; in later stages the stimulus of breaking open the vesicle 
causes them to release themselves readily, until at stage G 
(twelve days) they pour forth from the slightest cut of the vesicle 
in a writhing mass. Up to stage D or E the sperms, except for 
a very gentle beating of the filaments, are inactive when released. 
From this stage until apparent maturity (nine to twelve days) 
their activity when released increases, as well as the readiness 
with which they are expressed from the vesicle. It is concluded 
that in the vesicle the sperms are at all times at rest or nearly 
so, for if the vesicle is abruptly torn under the microscope the 
sperms attached along the torn edge appear quiescent for a 
moment. Also the spermatic fluid remains in the seminal vesicle 
until the time of copulation, not as Shafer suggests partly in the 
