OR, MANUAI< OS THE APIARY. 



123 



ward. The ommatidia, or simple eyes which form the com- 

 pound eyes of the drone (Pigfs. 3, 47), are, as shown by L,aco- 

 daire, more than twice as numerous as those of either queen or 

 worker. The drones also have longer and broader antennas, 

 with far more of the olfactory cavities, though not so many 

 tactile hairs as are found in the antennae of the workers. 

 Entomologists now believe that the better sight and smell, as 

 also the large wings, are very useful to the drone. They make 

 success more probable, as the drone flies forth with hundreds of 

 other drones in quest of a mate. We can also see how, through 

 the law of natural selection, all these peculiarities are con- 



FiG. 49. 



Beads of Worker, Queen and Drone, showing comparative length of Tongues, 

 from Cowan. 



A Worker. 



iJ Queen. 



C Drone. 



stantly strengthened. Their posterior legs are convex on the 

 outside (Fig. 48), so, like the queens, they have no pollen- 

 baskets. As we should expect, the branching hairs, both on 

 the body and legs, are almost absent in drones ; what there are 

 are coarse, and probably aid in mating. The drones are with- 

 out the defensive organ, having no sting, while their special 

 sex-organs (Fig. 37) are very interesting. These have been 

 ■fully described and illustrated by L,euckart. The testes are 

 situated in the abdomen, in an analogous position to that of 

 the ovaries in the queen. Like these organs in higher ani- 

 mals, there are in each testis hundreds of tubes in which are 

 developed the sperm-cells in bundles. As L,euckart shows, the 



