Bramble-bees and Others 



is not specially directed in search of it; and, 

 even when we are looking for it and it only, 

 we do not always succeed in discovering it. 

 We have to find a globule attaining in many 

 cases hardly as much as a millimetre^ in dia- 

 meter, a globule hidden amidst a tangle of air- 

 ducts and fatty patches, of which it shares the 

 colour, a dull white. Then again, the merest 

 slip of the forceps is enough to destroy it. 

 My first investigations, therefore, which con- 

 cerned the reproductive apparatus as a whole, 

 might very well have allowed it to pass un- 

 perceived. 



In order to know the rights of the matter 

 once and for all, as the anatomical treatises 

 taught me nothing, I once more fixed my 

 microscope on Its stand and rearranged my 

 old dissectlng-tank, an ordinary tumbler with 

 a cork disk covered with black satin. This 

 time, not without a certain strain on my eyes, 

 which are already growing tired, I succeeded 

 in finding the said organ in the Bembex- 

 wasps, the Halicti,- the Carpenter-bees, the 

 Bumble-bees, the Andrenae^ and the Megach- 



^About one-fiftieth of an inch. — Translator's Note. 

 2Cf. Chapters XXIII. to XXV. of the present volume.— 

 Translator's Note. 

 ^A species of Burrowing Bees. — Translator's Note. 



184 



