52 CLASSIFICATION, PHYSIOLOGY, ETC. 



occasioned by the emigration or death of the parent 

 queen, as the future mother of the hive, (or as such 

 in any swarm or colony) flies out for the purpose of 

 being impregnated. This takes place from the sev- 

 enth to the tenth day after she emerges from her 

 cell ; and from two to four days more elapse before 

 she commences to deposit eggs, which will be on the 

 ninth to the fourteenth day of her existence. 



Sometimes impregnation is retarded, or fails to take 

 place ; the result in either case is that she becomes 

 a drone layer. Exclusive drone laying (in my opin- 

 ion) frequently results from the imperfect develop- 

 ment of the ovaries of the queen. 



" Impregnation," (according to Dr. Fleming) " in 

 insects, appears to take place while the eggs pass a 

 reservoir containing the sperm, situated near the ter- 

 mination of the oviduct in the vulva." "In dis- 

 secting the female parts in the silk-moth, says Mr. 

 Hunter, I discovered a bag, lying on what may be 

 called vagina, or common oviduct, whose mouth or 

 opening was external, but it had a canal of commu- 

 nication betwixt it and the common oviduct. 



"In dissecting these parts before copulation, I found 

 this bag empty ; and when I dissected* them after- 

 wards, I found it full." (Phil. Trans. 1792, p. 186.) 



Dr. Leidy, who made dissections and microscopic 

 examinations of queen bees for Mr. Langstroth, in 

 the winter of 1851-2, " found, on making his dis- 

 sections, a small globular sac, about one thirty-third 

 of an inch in diameter, communicating with the ovi- 



