8 Transactions of the Society. 



that of the former (plate II. fig. 7, sp), while the spermatozoa are 

 nearly of the same size (plate II. fig. 8). 



The channel k h, fig. 5, is fairly wide, and at first I supposed it 

 tolerably straight and simple, but upon examining it with the low- 

 angled front of a Powell oil 1/12 in. I discovered it to contain a 

 membrane of extreme tenuity and remarkably convoluted, reminding 

 me much of the curious structure of the epididymis of higher 

 animals. The meaning of this peculiarity I can in no way explain. 

 Tracing this channel onwards till it perforates the side of the 

 common oviduct, a bifurcation is detected, one channel of which 

 appears Avide and indefinite and to be presently lost in the lower 

 part of the oviduct, whilst the other enters a central * and curiously 

 folded apparatus (plate II. fig. 3, a), which, for a reason to be 

 presently explained, I shall denominate the fertilizing pouch. I 

 have strong reasons for supposing that the path upwards from the 

 bursa copulatrix (fig. 3, d) (where the male organs of the drone are 

 retained at the time of copulation) and through the pouch aforesaid 

 to the spermatheca is so involved that it would not be possible for 

 the spermatozoa to enter the latter by following it, but that in the 

 early life of the queen the second wider and straighter channel to 

 which I have referred is fully open and by it the spermatozoa, with 

 their inscrutable power of self-direction, pass upwards, avoiding the 

 mazes of the fertihzing pouch and packing themselves for future 

 use. The queen if still unmated at four or five weeks old becomes 

 incapable of copulation or at least she evinces no desire for it, and 

 this possibly marks the time when this lower passage closes ; this 

 closure in a mated queen forcing the spermatozoa in descending 

 to take their way to the fertilizing pouch. 



If a central comb be lifted from a hive during the summer 

 months, eggs in number will be discovered. If one of these be 

 removed from either a worker or drone cell by the wetted point 

 of a camel-hah' pencil, and then microscopically examined in water 

 or glycerin, its surface will be found beautifully netted (the chorion), 

 almost as though a tiny pearl had been covered with what the ladies 

 call " blonde," hundreds of the meshes of which were required to 

 coat it completely. Towards one end the netting makes its cells 

 long and narrow and pointing towards a circular spot, just as the 

 cordage of a balloon points towards the upper valve by which the gas 

 is allowed to escape. This circular spot, I need not here explain, is 

 really an opening called the micropyle, by which the spermatozoon 

 enters and unites its material with the germ cell, so bringing about 

 fertilization. It will be remembered that it has been already stated 

 that in bees this fusion of male and female elements produces the 



* The tracing of this channel I have found extremely difficult in the hive bee. 

 The problem in tlic common wasp is fur easier, since in the latter the walls are 

 stronger and more definite. 



