Beceptaculum Seminis of Bees and Wasps. By F. B. Cheshire. 3 



bee one or more of the workers* (which from theii' anatomical 

 structure are incapable f of coition) will commence ovipositing, and 

 these eggs, from reasons now clear, develope drones only. Beyond 

 these facts and many similar ones, it has been demonstrated that the 

 drone produces a vast number of spermatozoa, and that the queen 

 after conjugation is found to contain these stored in a receptacle to 

 which the names spermatheca (plate I. fig. 1, sjj) and receptaculum 

 seminis have been given, and that these threads are the active 

 means for possibly converting an egg that would otherwise have 

 yielded a drone into a worker, or it may be a queen. But many 

 problems have had no answer, and most conspicuously those which 

 asked hoiu these threads were transferred to the eggs, and how a 

 mother after her impregnation could as needed supply eggs either 

 fertilized or unfertilized, and it is to these especially that I invite 

 attention. 



As however the investigation shows beautifully that the queen 

 after mating becomes most completely a creature carrying all the 

 essentials of the two genders within herself, it will be necessary to 

 consider the organization of the male. 



If the abdomen of a queen be cut open down the sides by fine 

 scissors and the three first dorsal plates carefully removed, we dis- 

 cover two very large organs (plate 1. fig. 1, o) tilling nearly the whole 

 of the enclosed space. These are the ovaries, and consist of from 

 100 to 12U tubes ± each, all lying side by side and gathered into a 

 bundle by countless small tracheae which act as connective tissue. 

 These ovarian tubes are at the upper end very small, and here each 

 egg is represented by an initial cell, but during development it 

 passes on, room being made for it by the escape of the matui'e 

 eggs at the wider lower end. Each tube merges into the oviduct 

 (plate I. fig. 1), the commencement of which is formed by the 

 opened out walls of the peripheral ovarian tubes. § The two ovaries 

 are thus covered below by very delicate but, as will be presently seen, 

 highly organized membranous expansions which may be compared 

 to funnels, the delivery pipes of which (the oviducts) unite into a 

 single tube, the common oviduct. If a drone be now opened in 

 like manner, we discover in the same relative part of his body two 

 organs much smaller in size, containing about 800 tubes, indi- 

 vidually minute, but from which are evolved the thread-like sper- 

 matozoa (plate I. fig. 4), much as the eggs are developed in the 



* Such workers are known as fertile workers. They are abnormal amongst 

 the hive bees, biit amongst some members of the Apidse and Vespid£e they perform 

 no unimportant part in the regular building up of the colony. 



t One exceptional instance is declared, but it must be received with reserve. 



X In counting these tubes, it is needful to thoroughly dissect, as the ovaries 

 are not equally active in every part, and some of the tubes, thin and flat, may 

 otherwise easily escape detection. 



§ The central tubes unite their lower edges and complete the covering above. 



B 2 



