PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 157 



invariable. When her impregnation takes place late in 

 the year, she does not begin laying till the following 

 srJring. Schirach asserts, that in one season a single fe- 

 male will lay from 70,000 to 100,000 eggs a . 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, sometimes so early as January 5 . 

 After this, in the spring, the great laying of male eggs 

 commences, lasting thirty days; in which time about 2000 

 of these eggs are laid. Another laying of them, but less 

 considerable, takes place in autumn. In the season of 

 oviposition, 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 hol- 

 lows formed by the conflux of the sides of the rhombs, 

 and, being besmeared with a kind of gluten, stand up- 

 right. 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 c . 



While our prolific lady is engaged in this employment, 



a Schirach, 7- 13. 



b Ibid. 13. Thorley, 105. 



c Bonnet, x. 258, 8vo. ed. 



