APPENDIX. 63 



NOTE 9. DEATH BY SUDDEN SHOCK. 



The most remarkable example of this kind of death known to me, 

 is that of the male bees. It has been long known that the drone 

 perishes while pairing-, and it was usually believed that the queen 

 bites it to death. Later observations have however shown that 

 this is not the case, but that the male suddenly dies during copulation, 

 and that the queen afterwards bites through the male intromittent 

 organ, in order to free herself from the dead body. In this case 

 death is obviously due to sudden excitement, for when the latter is 

 artificially induced, death immediately follows. Von Berlepsch 

 made some very interesting observations on this point, ' If one 

 catches a drone by the wings, during the nuptial flight, and holds 

 it free in the air without touching any other part, the penis is pro- 

 truded and the animal instantly dies, becoming motionless as 

 though killed by a shock. The same thing happens if one gently 

 stimulates the dorsal surface of the drone on a similar occasion. 

 The male is in such an excited and irritable condition that the 

 slightest muscular movement or disturbance causes the penis to 

 be protruded 1 .' In this case death is caused by the so-called 

 nervous shock. The humble-bees are not similarly constituted, for 

 the male does not die after fertilizing the female, ' but withdraws 

 its penis and flies away.' But the death of male bees, during 

 pairing, must not be regarded as normal death. Experiment has 

 shown that these insects can live for more than four months 2 . 

 They do not, as a matter of fact, generally live so long ; for 

 although the workers do not, as was formerly believed, kill them 

 after the fertilization of the queen, by direct means they prevent 

 them from eating the honey and drive them from the hive, so that 

 they die of hunger 3 . 



We must also look upon death which immediately, or very 

 quickly, follows upon the deposition of eggs as death by sudden 

 shock. The females of certain species of Psyckidae, when they re- 

 produce sexually, may remain alive for more than a week waiting 

 for a male : after fertilization, however, they lay their eggs and 

 die, while the parthenogenetic females of the same species lay their 



1 von Berlepsch, ' Die Biene und ihre Zucht,' etc. 



2 Oken, ' Isis,' 1844, p. 506. 



3 von Berlepsch, 1. c., p. 165. 



