12 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 
number of 37,800 distinct organs. When I couple this develop- 
ment with the greater size of the eye of the drone, and ask what 
is his function, why needs he such a magnificent equipment? and 
remember that he has not to scent the nectar from afar, nor spy 
out the coy blossoms as they peep between the leaves, I feel forced 
to the conclusion that the pursuit of the queen renders them nec- 
essary.’’? (Cheshire.) 
27. While giving these short quotations and beautiful 
engravings from Cheshire’s anatomy of the bee, we earnestly 
advise the scientific bee-student to procure and read his 
work. Mr. Cheshire shows us those minute organs so beauti- 
fully and extensively magnified, that in reading his book we 
feel as though we were transported by some Genius inside 
of the body of a giant insect, every detail of whose organ 
~igm was laid open before us. However wonderful the 
statement made above, of the existence of nearly 20,000 
organs in such a small thing as the antenna of a bee, this 
fact will not be disputed. Those of our bee-friends, who have 
had the good luck to meet the sympathetic editor of the 
British Bee-Journal, Mr. Cowan, during his trip to America, 
in 1887, will long remember the wonderful microscopical 
studies, and the microscope which he brought with him. 
This instrument, the most powerful by far that we ever had 
seen, gave us a practical peep into the domain of the infini- 
tesimal. 
28. Better than any other description of the smallness of 
atoms is that given by Flammarion, in his ‘‘Astronomie 
Populaire ’’ : 
“Tt is proven,” he says, “that an atom cannot be larger than 
one ten-millionth of a millimeter. It results from this, that the 
number of atoms contained in the head of a pin, of an ordinary 
diameter, would not be less than 
8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. 
And if it was possible to count these atoms, and to separate them, 
at the rate of one billion per second, it would take 250,000 years 
to number them.” 
