IN THE HONEY-BEE. 87 



pared in the way above described, it exhibited two spermatozoids 

 in the clear empty space between the egg-membranes and the 

 yelk which had retired on the crushing of the egg. One of the 

 seminal filaments performed very lively tortuous movements ; the 

 second filament was rigid, but adhered firmly to the other 

 seminal filament, and was thus moved by its movements. These 

 movements were first seen by me at about half-past eight, and 

 were also observed by Von Berlepsch and Giinther and by two 

 other witnesses. Three minutes afterwards the seminal filament 

 was still active. The preparation was then put by, and not again 

 examined under the microscope for fifteen minutes. The move- 

 ments of the first seminal filament had then ceased also, but 

 both spermatozoids, although motionless, were still clearly di- 

 stinguishable in the same spot. A fourteenth egg furnished no 

 result, its preparation being unsuccessful. In a fifteenth, four 

 distinct but motionless spermatozoids were discoverable in the 

 space which had become empty during the preparation, between 

 the envelopes and the retreating yelk. 



On the same day, another comb with female eggs was removed 

 from another bee-hive ; it might at the utmost have been twelve 

 hours old. The investigations continued with these eggs gave 

 the following results. A sixteenth egg, the preparation of which 

 turned out well, exhibited no seminal filaments in its interior. 

 With the seventeenth egg the preparation was unsuccessful. 

 An eighteenth egg contained three seminal filaments in the spot 

 above mentioned; one of these was active. In the nineteenth 

 and twentieth eggs the preparation was unsuccessful. The 

 twenty-first contained two motionless seminal filaments, as did 

 also the twenty-second. In the twenty-third egg, on the con- 

 trary, I could distinguish four motionless seminal filaments. 

 With the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth eggs the preparation 

 was unsuccessful. The twenty-sixth and twenty- seventh again 

 exhibited a single motionless filament, and the twenty-eighth 

 two of them. The four following eggs all showed only a single 

 motionless seminal filament. The examination of the thirty- 

 third egg was again unsuccessful. The thirty-fourth and thirty- 

 fifth eggs exhibited three motionless spermatozoids, and the 

 thirty-sixth egg examined by me contained one active and three 

 motionless seminal filaments. In the thirty-seventh and thirty- 



