8 



THE EMBRYOLOGY OF THE HONEY BEE 



FIG. 2. Micropylar area, as seen in face view, x 713. 



strate actual perforations in the micropylar area of the bee's egg. 

 All of the sections of the eggs have been unsatisfactory in this 

 regard. This is in part due to the density and toughness of the 

 chorion, these qualities being intensified by the process of dehy- 

 dration preliminary to embedding in paraffin, so that clear and 

 sharp transverse sections of this portion of the chorion are rare. 

 The indirect evidence that this is the micropylar region is how- 

 ever very strong. In the first place, as has already been said, 

 the micropyle is in very many insect eggs situated at the an- 

 terior pole. In the second place no other portion of the chorion 

 displays any differentiation which could be interpreted as a 

 micropylar apparatus; and lastly Blochmann (1889), Petrunke- 

 witsch (1901) and Nachtsheim (1913) have found that the sper- 

 matozoa do actually enter the egg at the anterior pole. In spite 

 of the lack of direct evidence of the actual perforation of the 

 chorion at the anterior pole it is fairly safe to assume that this is 

 in fact the micropylar area. 



The vitelline membrane, the second of the two membranes en- 

 closing the insect egg, is in the bee somewhat thinner than the 



