Beceptaculiim Seminis of Bees and Wasps. By F. B. Cheshire. 11 



would pass into the vulva and enter the spermatheca, giving us a 

 queen fertilized from the birth, but one which, no doubt, would 

 carry but few spermatozoa, and so be practically useless— a point 

 which the Microscope could alone determine. But in this quaint 

 performance practical men have given to the embryologist a 

 method of experimenting which may yield good results. Every 

 scientific investigator would see at once far better methods of pro- 

 cedure and possibilities, it may be, not only of tracing the course 

 of the spermatozoa, but of producing hybrids and mules, the study 

 of which may be of immense interest. I hope at any rate to 

 institute experiments in this direction in the coming summer, by 

 which one doubtful point may at any rate be made to pass from 

 the region of speculation to that of knowledge. It is as follows : — 

 Although the drones produced by the fertile workers (to which 

 reference was previously made) develope spermatozoa exhibiting 

 microscopically all the appearances of those obtained from the 

 normal drone, still the virility of the insect has been questioned, 

 practical men supposing that because he was of doubtful origin he 

 probably was impotent. This question has both a practical and 

 scientific value. Practical, because if the sj)ermatozoa from these 

 fertile-worker-drones are equally effective as those from normal 

 drones, the apiarian would have at command, by keeping a fertile 

 worker ovipositing, a stock of drones at a season of the year when 

 they would not be obtainable from an impregnated queen, and 

 hence he would possess the means of raising and fertilizing queens 

 either earlier or later in the season than would otherwise be pos- 

 sible. The scientific interest centres about the fact that it is well 

 known that amongst the higher animals where a mother * has 

 borne ofispring the influence of its father may be impressed on her 

 progeny afterwards begotten by a different parent, as in the case 

 of the transmission of Quagga marks to a succession of colts both 

 of whose parents were of the species Horse, the mare having been 

 impregnated by a Quagga male ; or in the instance (many cases of 

 which I have observed amongst our own poultry) of a pullet being 

 spoiled for the breeding of fancy stock by some accidental mis- 

 alliance. The explanation of the first given phenomenon, which 

 rests upon the statement that probably the blood of the female 

 imbibes from that of the foetus through the placental circulation 

 some of the attributes which the latter derived from the male 

 parent, does not seem so directly to apply to the case of the insect 

 as does that of the fowl, for it appears to me that it may be argued 

 that in the queen-produced-drone, although there is no actual sper- 

 matic fusion, still the fluids of the queen generally are not un- 

 influenced by the constant presence of spermatozoa within her 



* ' Philosophical Transactions,' 1832, and Carpenter's 'Physiology' by Power, 

 1881, p. 905. ' ' F 



