Permutations of Sex 



illes/ I failed In the case of the Osmlae, the 

 Chalicodomae and the Anthophorae. Is the 

 organ really absent? Or was there want of 

 skill on my part ? I lean towards want of skill 

 and admit that all the game-hunting and 

 honey-gathering Hymenoptera possess a sem- 

 inal receptacle, which can be recognized by 

 its contents, a quantity of spiral spermatozoids 

 whirling and twisting on the slide of the mi- 

 croscope. 



This organ once accepted, the German 

 theory becomes applicable to all the Bees and 

 all the Wasps. When copulating, the female 

 receives the seminal fluid and holds It stored 

 in her receptacle. From that moment, the 

 two procreating elements are present in the 

 mother at one and the same time: the female 

 element, the ovule; and the male element, the 

 spermatozoid. At the egg-layer's will, the 

 receptacle bestows a tiny drop of its contents 

 upon the matured ovule, when it reaches the 

 oviduct, and you have a female egg; or else 

 it withholds its spermatozoids and you have 

 an egg that remains male, as it was at first. 

 I readily admit it: the theory is very simple, 



'Or I.caf-ciitfinc Bees. Cf. Chapter XIX. of the present 

 volume. — Translator's Note. 



185 



