4 Transactions of the Society. 



queen, so that the ovaries of the queen and the testes of the drone 

 are honiologues of one another. A canal also on each side of the 

 hcdy conveys these threads as matured to the vesicula seniinalis, 

 which is much larger than the testis, and here they await the object 

 of their development. The homologuo of this store-chamber is clearly 

 the spermatheca of the queen. At the time of mating spermatozoa 

 require a medium in which they may be floated into their proper 

 destination, and to supply this a gland is provided — the glandula 

 mucosa — into which the vesicula seminalis opens, and during ejacu- 

 lation the mucous secretion of the gland and tlie spennatozoa are 

 sent forward together. The mucous gland, we shall presently see 

 good reason to believe, has also its homologue in the queen, Avhich 

 now we had better scrutinize. 



Near the commencement of the common oviduct, which is 

 fastened by very complicated muscles to the fifth abdominal ring, 

 we find the before-mentioned globular body (plates I. and II. 

 figs. 1 and 2), rather more than 1 mm. in diameter, glistening 

 like burnished silver, because densely coated with the closest and 

 most curiously felted plexus of tracheae with which I am acquainted. 

 This spermatheca is in structural communication with the common 

 oviduct, but the smallest roughness will break it from its attach- 

 ment, and will frustrate any endeavour to discover how it is filled 

 up and used ; but with it separated, should accident detach it, we 

 may still study the exceedingly curious and complicated valvular 

 apparatus with which it is furnished. Eemoving it to the stage of 

 the dissecting j\Iicroscope,* and surrounding it with dilute glycerin, 

 w'e get glimpses of a contained membrane between the meshes of the 

 investing tracheas. So far as I know, those who have studied this 

 matter have failed to discover that these tracheae merely closely 

 embrace the actual spermatheca, and that they in no instance enter 

 its walls ; but such is the fact, and by very careful teasing and 

 cutting with needle-knives we may so separate them that they may 

 be peeled off as a rind from an orange. The sac itself (plate II. 

 fig. 2) is now seen to have beautifully transparent sides, giving 

 faint indications of originating in coalescing cells, but having no 

 discernible structure except near its outlet where it has an epithelial 

 lining. Through its sides, if the queen is unimpregnated, we dis- 

 cern only a perfectly clear fluid. f If, on the contrary, she has 

 been recently mated, the whole interior is densely clouded and 

 semi-opaque, since it is perfectly filled with spermatozoa ; but as 

 older and yet older queens are operated upon, the spermatozoa 



* I use a " Stephenson's erecting binocular," and hardly think what I am 

 describing could be accomplished with a simple " dissector." 



f Leidy describes the fluid as granular, which is certainly crroneons. 

 Leuckart says it is clear. Botli of these observers appear to have merely 

 ruptured the sac by pressure, afterwards examining the expressed matter. 



