PHTSIOLOQT. 37 



to the way in which the eggs which were not yet developed 

 in her ovaries, could be fertilized. Years ago, the celebra- 

 ted Dr. John Hunter, and others, supposed that there must be 

 a permanent receptacle for the male sperm, opening into 

 the passage for the eggs called the oviduct. Dzierzon, who 

 must be regarded as one of the ablest contributors of modern 

 times, to Apiarian science, maintains this opinion, and states 

 that he has found such a receptacle filled with a fluid, resemb- 

 ling the semen of the drones. He nowhere, to my knowledge, 

 Slates that he ever made microscopic examinations, so as to 

 put the matter on the fooling of demonstration. 



In January and February of 1852, T submitted several 

 Queen Bees to Dr. Joseph Leidy of Philadelphia, for a scien- 

 tific examination. I need hardly say to any Naturalist in this 

 country, that Dr. Leidy has obtained the very highest repu- 

 tation, both at home and abroad, as a skillful naturalist and 

 microscopic anatomist. No man in this country or Europe, 

 was more competent to make the investigations that I desired. 

 He found in making his dissections, a small globular sac, not 

 larger than a grain of mustard seed, (about -^^ of an inch in 

 diameter,) communicating with the oviduct, and filled with a 

 whitish fluid, which when examined under the microscope, 

 was found to abound in spermatozoa, or the animalculae, 

 which are the unmistakable characteristics of the seminal 

 fluid. Later in the season, the same substance was com- 

 pared with some taken from the drones, and found to be 

 exactly similar to it. 



These examinations have settled, on the impregnable basis 

 of demonstration, the mode in which the eggs of the Queen 

 are vivified. In descending the oviduct to be deposited in 

 the cells, they pass by the mouth of this seminal sac or 

 spermatheca, and receive a portion of its fertilizing con- 

 tents. Small as it is, its contents arc sufficient to impregnate 

 i 



