186 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS 



tion of each sex.^ He is positive that the workers have 

 no reproductive organs, though it is now known that 

 they occasionally lay eggs. He remarks that both the 

 queen and the workers possess a sting, while the drones 

 have none, and that in structure and disposition the 

 workers resemble the queen rather than the drones. 



The external features of the bee are described in much 

 detail, and Swammerdam put forth all his skill in the 

 account of the proboscis, compound eyes and sting. We 

 are surprised to find no detailed account or enlarged 

 figure of the legs of the worker-bee, on which we 

 should have expected that particular care would have 

 been bestowed. 



The large figure of the proboscis might be copied 

 almost without alteration in any modern text-book of 

 entomology ; but in the description we observe some 

 mistakes. Swammerdam thought that the long slender 

 tongue was a real tube,^ that it was the only entrance to 

 the mouth, and that the sucking-up of liquids was 

 effected by the movement of the abdomen. Many a 

 bee would have perished by starvation had it been 

 furnished with a capillary inlet so liable to become 

 choked with viscid nectar and pollen. The tongue is 

 actually grooved and not tubular ; the suctorial channel 

 is made up of distinct pieces, which can be separated at 

 pleasure ; moreover there is a large and distensible 



1 Others had suspected that the "governor" of the bees was a female, but 

 without attempt at strict proof, e.g. Butler {supra, p. 89). Milton's Paradise 

 Lost was published in 1667, and can have taken no advantage of Swammer- 

 dam's discoveries. Yet it celebrates 



*'The female bee, that feeds her husband drone 

 Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells 

 With honey stored." (vii, 490-1.) 



2*'Cavi instar tubuli pervia" {B.X., p. 445; pi. xvii, fig. v). Swammer- 

 dam's mistake was pointed out by Reaumur, Hist, des Insectes, torn, v, 

 pp. 320-1. 





