84 rHYSioLOGY or the honey-bee. 



Dzierzon supposes that the sound of the queen's wings, 

 when she is in the air, excites the drones. Evidently their 

 eyes (11) and ears (25) which are highly developed, as 

 proven by Cheshire, help them also in the search of the 

 queen, which is their sole occupation, when in the field. In 

 the interior of the hive, they are never seen to notice her; 

 so that she is not molested, even if thousands are members 

 of the same colony with herself. But outside of the hive, 

 they readily follow her, led, according to Dzierzon, by the 

 peculiar hum of her flight, and certainly also, by the senses 

 of smell and of sight, which are more perfect than those of 

 the worker, most likely for this single purpose. 



"When the queen flies abroad, the fleetest drone is more 

 likely to succeed in his addresses than another, and thus he im- 

 presses upon posterity some part of his own superior activity 

 and energy. The slow and weak in the race die without heirs, 

 so that the survival of the fittest is not an accident, but a pre- 

 determination. In previous chapters we have considered his 

 highly-developed eyes, meeting at the vertex of his head, his 

 multitudinous smell-hollows, and his strong large wings, the ad- 

 vantage of which now appears in a clearer light; his quickness 

 in discovering a mate, whose neighborhood is to him filled with 

 irresistible odours, and his ability in keeping her in view dur- 

 ing pursuit, are no less helpful to his purpose than fleetness on 

 the wing. . . . " — (Cheshire.) 



188. The drone perishes in the act of impregnating the 

 queen. Although, when cut into two pieces, each piece will 

 retain its ^•itality for a long time, we accidentally ascertained, 

 in the Summer of 1S53, that if his abdomen is gently pressed, 

 and sometimes if several are closely held in the warm hand, 

 the male organ will often be permanently extruded, with a 

 motion very like the popping of roasted pop-corn ; and the 

 insect, with a shiver, will curl up and die, as quickly as if 

 blasted with the lightning's stroke. This singular provision 

 is unquestionably intended to give additional security to the 

 queen when she leaves her hive to have intercourse with the 

 drone. Huber first discovered that she returned with the male 



