20 BRITISH BEES. 



fecundating property of the semen in animals^ and, like 

 them, produces spermatozoa, a fact corroborated by the 

 researches of Robert Brown, Mirbel, and other dis- 

 tinguished vegetable physiologists.* 



We are told that the cells oiHylmus, or Prosopis, and 

 of Ceratina are supplied with a semifluid honey. It is 

 verv doubtful if Hylmus collects its own store, but that 

 Ceratina does I have the authority of an exact observer 

 (Mr. Thwaites) to verify it, for he has caught this in- 

 sect with pollen on its posterior legs, which the long 

 hair covering the tibia is intended for. What may be 

 the nature of this semifluid honey ? It is questionable 

 if the larva could be nurtured upon honey alone with- 

 out the admixture of pollen, thus contradicting analogies 

 presumable from ample verification in nature's processes. 

 How, too, does it become semifluid ? It is the property 

 of honey, at a certain temperature, to be very fluid, and 

 this is doubtless the temperature that prevails within 

 the receptacle of the larva during the time of the opera- 

 tions of the bees. 



Its semifluid consistency could then apparently be 

 produced only by some more solid admixture, which, if 

 not of pollen, of what can it be? This, even in small 

 quantities, might, upon the bursting of its vesicles, have 

 the power of thickening the fluent honey to the neces- 

 sary consistency. 



But a bee without polliniferous organs cannot collect 

 pollen, and the instance of the hive bee, which collects 

 honey in superabundance, feeding its larva m ith the bee- 



* Might not, by parity of inference, the milt of fishes, such as the 

 herring, mackerel, etc., be a useful food in oases of consumption, both 

 from the iodine necessarily existing in it, and also from its doubtless 

 nutritive nature ? 



