176 NATURAL HISTORY OF WASES. 
name implies, to contain the fertilizing fluid with 
which each egg is brought into contact as it passes 
down the oviduct. 
During this examination the eye may perhaps have 
been caught by a clear white glittering thread, con- 
nected rather with the root of the sting, as it might 
seem, than with the uterus. This is the gluten 
gland. It is the source of the glutinous secretion 
which coats the egg just before its final extrusion 
and, hardening into a skin lke that which invests 
the eggs of snakes, fastens it to the cell wall. It is 
a clear transparent tube, distinguished from other 
gland tubes by not being marked by the presence of 
cells within it, and also by its much larger size. It 
is found without difficulty, if the mass of sting and 
uterus be carefully torn up under the microscope ; 
its bright opalescent appearance readily distinguish- 
ing it from the loose white shreds in which it les 
entangled. But as it is very soft, it is liable to be 
separated from its connections. It is about a tenth of 
an inch or more in length, sometimes bifid at the free 
end; of irregular outline, about one eightieth of an 
inch in diameter at its widest part, but narrowing 
towards its orifice. It opens in the middle line, on 
the lower wall of the uterus, at the point where this 
joins the common vent or cloaca. 
It should be observed that the dissection of all 
these parts is much more difficult in the wasp than 
in the honey-bee, where they are larger and firmer, 
and altogether much better developed. Indeed, the 
small wasps are far behind their larger sister, the 
hornet, in this particular. However, queen-wasps 
are much more common than queen-hornets, and 
