THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



the deliveiy pipes of which (the 

 oviducts) unite into a single tube, 

 the common oviduct. If a drone 

 be now opened in lilfe manner, we 

 discover in the same relative part 

 of his body two organs much 

 smaller in size, containing about 

 300 tubes, individually minute, but 

 from which are evolved the thread- 

 like spermatozoa, much as the 

 eggs are developed in the queen, 

 so that the ovaries of the queen 

 and the testes of the drone are 

 homologues of one another. A 

 canal also on each side of the body 

 couvej's these threads as matured 

 to the vesicula seminalis which is 

 much larger than the testis, and 

 here they await the object of their 

 development. The horaologue of 

 this store-chamber is clearly the 

 spermatheca of the queen. At 

 the time of mating, spermatozoa 

 require a medium in which they 

 ma}^ be floated into their proper 

 destination, and to supply this a 

 gland is provided — the glandula 

 mucosa — into which the vesicula 

 seminalis opens, and during ejacu- 

 lation the mucous secretion of the 

 gland and the spermatozoa are 

 sent forward together. The mu- 

 cous gland, we shall presently see 

 good reason to believe, has also 

 its homologue in the queen, which 

 now we had better scrutinize. 



Near the commencement of the 

 common oviduct, which is fastened 

 by very complicated muscles to 

 the fifth abdominal ring, we find 

 the before-mentioned globular 

 body rather more than 1 mm. in 

 diameter, glistening like burnished 

 silver, because densely coated with 



the closest and most curiously 

 felted plexus of tracheas with which 

 I am acquainted. This spermathe- 

 ca is in structural communication 

 with the common oviduct, but the 

 smallest roughness will break it 

 from its attachment, and will frus- 

 trate any endeavour to discover 

 how it is filled up and used ; but 

 with it separated, should accident 

 detach it, we may still study the 

 exceedingly curious and compli- 

 cated valvula apparatus with which 

 it is furnished. Removing it to 

 the stage of the dissecting micro- 

 scope,^ and surrounding it with di- 

 lute glycerin, we get glimpses of 

 a contained membrane between the 

 meshes of the investing tracheae. 

 So far as I know, those who have 

 studied this matter have failed to 

 discover that these tracheoe merely 

 closely embrace the actual sperma- 

 theca, and that they in no instance 

 enter its walls ; but such is the 

 fact, and by very careful teasing 

 and cutting with needle-knives we 

 may so separate them that they 

 may be peeled off as a rind from 

 an orange. The sac itself is now 

 seen to have beautifully transpar- 

 ent sides, giving faint indications 

 of originating in coalescing cells, 

 but having no discernible struc- 

 ture except near its outlet where 

 it has an epithelial lining. Throuoh 

 its sides, if the queen is unimpreg- 

 nated, we discern only a perfectly 

 clear fluid. 3 If, on the contrary', she 



H use a "Stephenson's erecting binocular," 

 and hardly think what I am describing could 

 be accomplished with a simple "dissector." 



^Leidy describes the fluid as granular, 

 which is certainly erroneous. Leuckart says 

 it is clear. Both of these observers appear to 



