20 BRITISH BEES. 



fecundating property of the semen in animals, and, like 

 them, produces spermatozoa, a fact corroborated by the 

 researches of Robert Brown, Mirbel, and other dis- 

 tinguished vegetable physiologists. 1 * 



We are told that the cells of Hylceus, or Prosopis, and 

 of Ceratina are supplied with a semifluid honey. It is 

 very doubtful if Hylceus collects its own store, but that 

 Ceratina does I have the authority of an exact observer 

 (Mr. Thwaites) to verify it, for he has caught this in- 

 sect with pollen on its posterior legs, which the long 

 hair covering the tibia is intended for. What may be 

 the nature of this semifluid honey ? It is questionable 

 if the larva could be nurtured upon honey alone with- 

 out the admixture of pollen, thus contradicting analogies 

 presumable from ample verification in nature's processes. 

 How, too, does it become semifluid ? It is the property 

 of honey, at a certain temperature, to be very fluid, arid 

 this is doubtless the temperature that prevails within 

 the receptacle of the larva during the time of the opera- 

 tions of the bees. 



Its semifluid consistency could then apparently be 

 produced only by some more solid admixture, which, if 

 not of pollen, of what can it be ? This, even in small 

 quantities, might, upon the bursting of its vesicles, have 

 the power of thickening the fluent honey to the neces- 

 sary consistency. 



But a bee without polliniferous organs cannot collect 

 pollen, and the instance of the hive bee, which. collects 

 honey in superabundance, feeding its larva with the bee- 



* Might not, by parity of inference, the milt of fishes, such as the 

 herring, mackerel, etc., be a useful food in cases of consumption, both 

 from the iodine necessarily existing in it, and also from its doubtless 

 nutritive nature? 



