THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



125 



movemcnU. The second filament was rigid, but 

 adhered lirnily lo tlie other seminal Ulamcnl, 

 and was thus moved b}-^ its movements. These 

 movements were first seen by me at about half- 

 past eight, and were also observed by Von 

 Berlepsch and Guuther, and by two other wit- 

 nesses. Three minutes afterwards the seminal 

 filaments were still active. The preparation 

 was then put by and not again examined under 

 the microscope lor fifteen minutes. The move- 

 ments of the first seminal filament had then 

 ceased also, but both spermatozoids, although 

 motionless, were still distinguishable iu the 

 same spot. A fourteenth egg furnished no re- 

 sult, its preparation being unsuccessful. Iir a 

 fifteeuth four distinct but motionless spermato- 

 zoids were discoverable in the space which had 

 become empty during the preparation between 

 the envelopes and the retreating yelk. 



On the same day another comb with female 

 eggs was removed from another bee-hive; they 

 might at the utmost have been twelve hours 

 old. The investigations continued with these 

 eggs gave the following results. A sixteenth 

 egg, the preparation of which turned out well, 

 exhibited no semiual filaments iu its interior. 

 With the seventeenth egg the preparation was 

 unsuccessful. An eighteenth egg contained 

 three seminal filaments in the spot above men- 

 tioned; one of these %om active. In the nine- 

 teenth and twentieth eggs the preparation was 

 unsuccessful. The twenty-first contained two 

 motionless seminal filaments, as did also the 

 twenty-second. In the tweuty-third egg on the 

 contrary, I could distinguish four motionless 

 seminal filaments. With the twenty-fourth and 

 twenty-filth eggs the preparation was unsuc- 

 cessful. The twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh 

 again exhibited each a single motionless fila- 

 ment, andthe twenty-eighth, two of them. The 

 four following eggs all showed only a single 

 motionless seminal filament. The examination 

 of the thirty-third egg was again unsuccessful. 

 Tt)e thirty-fourth and thirty-iil'th eggs exhibited 

 three motionless spermatozoids, and the thirty- 

 sixth egg examined by me contained one active 

 and three mo^ioule^^s semiual filaments. Iu the 

 thirtj'-seventh and thirty-eighth eggs, I could 

 only perceive a motionless spermatozoid; in the 

 thirty-ninth, fortieth, and forty -first on the con- 

 trary, I was able to discover two rigid sperma- 

 tozoids. 



On the 23d of August a third comb furnished 

 with female eggs, Avas also employed for inves- 

 tigation, the eggs in Avhich had only just been 

 deposited. Tliese eggs, however, did not show 

 themselves favorable to the above-described 

 mode of investigation employed by me, because 

 the yelk would not detach itself so easily from 

 the vitelline membrane after the rupture of the 

 envelopes. But when I succeeded in producing 

 the empty space between the envelopes of the 

 G^'^ and the yelk in these eggs, I often found it 

 possible to discover spermatozoids in Iheir in- 

 terior. Not to weary the reader, I Avill onlj' 

 enumerate a portion of these investigations in 

 their order: The forty-third (Sgg allowed a mo- 

 tionless seminal filament to be detected, sitting 

 externally on tlie micropylar apparatus. The 

 forty-fourth and forty-filth eggs furnished no 



results from unsuccessful preparation. The ex- 

 amiiiation ol' tliese wasnot repeated until seven 

 o'clock in the morning of the 24th of August, 

 when these deposited eggs were fifteen hours 

 old. The forty-sixth egg contained several 

 coiled but motionless spermatozoids. In the 

 forty- seventh egg I was able to discover one 

 motionless seminal filament. With the forty- 

 eighth the preparation was unsuccessful, and 

 with the forty-ninth and fiftieth, I was obliged 

 to leave it doubtful whether the object which 

 might have been taken for a seminal filament, 

 was such in reality. Both the fifty -first and 

 fifty-second eggs allowed a motionless seminal 

 filament to be clearly distinguished in the empty 

 sjiace, Avlieu the yelk had retracted itself down- 

 ward from the micropylar apparatus by the rup- 

 ture of the egg shells. 



If I sum up the observations just referred to, 

 they furnish on the whole a very favorable re- 

 sult, considering the difficulties of the investi- 

 gation, for I have also convinced myself that 

 these investigations of the egg of the bee are, as 

 Leucliart has very justly asserted, amongst the 

 most dilficult of all investigations of the kind. 

 Amongst the fifty-two female bee-eggs exam- 

 ined by me with the greatest care and conscien- 

 tiously, thirty furnished a positive result; that 

 is to say, in thirty I could prove the existence 

 of semiual filaments, in which movements cottld 

 be detected in three eggs. Of the other twenty- 

 two eggs, twelve were unsuccessful in their 

 preparation. At the same time I may also in^ 

 dicate particularly that the observations with 

 positive and negative results followed each 

 other quite irregularly, but alternating at very 

 short intervals, Avhich probably was only de- 

 pendent upon the favorable or unfavorable con- 

 sequences of my preparation of the eggs em- 

 ployed for observation. If the question is to 

 be raised why Leuckart wasnot so fortunate as 

 to see wiiat 1 have succeeded in seeing, I can 

 make no oilier answer, but that probably the 

 ditferent mode followed by us in our investiga- 

 tion is to be blamed for Leuckart's want of suc- 

 cess. Berlepsch informed me that Leuckart 

 did not examine the contents of the eggs by the 

 c'arefitl compression of the bee's egg, but that 

 he confined liimself to submitting the eggs in 

 a perfectly uninjured state to an external ex- 

 amination. 



It is certainly to my mode of investigation 

 alone that I am indebted for tho successful re- 

 sult of these observations, which were made 

 with an excellent microscope of Kellner's. The 

 careful rupture of the egg membrane effected 

 always by me, must prove an extremely im- 

 portant manipulation, for by this alone it was 

 possible evidently to isolate the delicate seminal 

 filaments which had penetrated into the cavity 

 of the eggs and become concealed by the yelk 

 mass, as after penetrating into the egg they pro- 

 babl}' continue adhering for some time to the 

 micropylar apparatus by their caudal extremity 

 and remain behind, isolated in the upper empty 

 portion of the cavitj' of the egg during the issue 

 of the yelk mass after the rupture of the mem- 

 branes. 



Above all things, however, it was of conse- 

 qucAce to me that \ should be able to examine 



