IN THE HONEY-BEE. J9 



of development of the egg are not produced merely by the imme- 

 diate contact of the semen with the egg, but the elementary con- 

 stituents of the semen, the mobile seminal filaments, must actually 

 slip into the interior of the egg, very probably to become de- 

 stroyed here at first, to be dissolved and then mixed with the 

 elementary constituents of the egg*. For this purpose the eggs 

 of insects possess a micropylar apparatus, that is to say, one or 

 more small apertures at one of the poles, through which the 

 spermatozoids must get into the interior as far as the yelk of the 

 egg, in order to complete the act of fecundation. 



Leuckart was the first to set himself the task of ascertaining 

 by direct observation, to what modifications the penetration 

 of the spermatozoids through the micropylar apparatus of the 

 eggs of the Bee would be subjected according to Dzierzon's 

 theory. For this purpose he went to Seebach at the end of May 

 last year, in order to be able to make use of the most abundant 

 selection of the necessary objects for investigation. A better 

 opportunity for such investigations could be presented to him 

 nowhere else than in the immediate vicinity of the grand Bee- 

 establishment at Seebach, in which however we must also take 

 into account the disinterested liberality with which Herr von 

 Berlepseh sacrificed his apiarian riches for the purposes of such 

 physiological and anatomical investigations. 



Leuckart' s intention had already been announced by Berlepseh 

 in the Bienenzeitungf, and I was therefore extremely anxious to 

 know what results Leuckart would obtain from these Seebach 

 studies. These have been recently published by Leuckart in the 

 above-mentioned Journal, from which J I will here communicate 

 the most important of the results. 



Leuckart was of course obliged in the first place to turn his 

 particular attention to the micropylar apparatus of the eggs of 

 Bees, of which he gave the following description § : — " As in the 

 eggs of most insects, we distinguish in that of the Bees two 



* The cases of true Parthenogenesis are, of course, to be understood as 

 forming the exceptions to this rule. 



t For 1855, p. 82. 2. 



% Bienenzeitung, 1855, Nos. 17 and 18 (published on the 30th of September), 

 p. 99. Seebacher Studien. 



§ See loc. cit. supra, p. 204. 2. 



