24 HISTORY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 



than sterile workers, and this is the only external 

 difference between them. 



If any further proof were required to establish 

 the opinion that working bees are females, the 

 question has been set at rest for ever, by the dis- 

 sections of Miss Jurine, daughter of the distin- 

 guished naturalist of Geneva : what had eluded 

 the scalpel and the microscope of that penetrating 

 and indefatigable naturalist Swammerdam, was 

 reserved for the still finer hand and more dexterous 

 dissection of a lady. Miss Jurine, by adopting a 

 particular method of preparing the object to be 

 examined, brought into view the rudiments of the 

 ovaria of the common working bee : her examina- 

 tions were several times repeated, and always with 

 success : in form, situation and structure, they were 

 found to be perfectly analogous to those of the queen 

 bee, excepting that no ova could be distinguished 

 in them. M. Cuvier, however, thinks that he has 

 observed minute chaplets in common bees, re- 

 sembling those in the oviducts of queens ; an ad- 

 ditional confirmation, if any were wanted, of the 

 opinion that workers are females whose organiza- 

 tion is not developed. Miss J urine undertook the 

 delicate task to which I have just referred, at the 

 request of M. Huber, who speaks of her as a 

 young lady who had devoted her time and the 

 liberal gifts of nature to similar studies, and says 

 that she already rivalled Lyonnet and Merian ; but 



