60 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 
that however mysterious they may appear to us, they are 
beautifully consistent in the sight of Him whose ‘‘ under- 
standing is infinite.’’ 
142. It had long been known that the queen deposits . 
drone-eggs in the large or drone-cells, and worker-eggs in 
the small or worker-cells, and that she usually makes no 
mistakes. Dzierzon inferred, therefore, that there was some 
way in which she was able to decide the sex of the egg be- 
fore it was laid, and that she must have such a control over 
the mouth of the seminal sac as to be able to extrude her 
eggs, allowing them at will to receive or not a portion of its 
fertilizing contents. In this way he thought she determined 
their sex, according to the size of the cells in which she 
laid them. 
143. Our lamented friend, Mr. Samuel Wagner, had ad- 
vanced a highly ingenious theory, which accounted for all 
the facts, without admitting that the queen had any special 
knowledge or will on the subject. He supposed that, when 
she deposited her eggs in the worker-cells, her body was 
slightly compressed by their size, thus causing the eggs as 
they passed the spermatheca to receive its vivifying in- 
fluence. 
144. But this theory was overthrown by the fact that 
the queen sometimes lays eggs in cells that are built only to 
a third of their length, whether worker-cells or drone-cells, 
and in which no compression can take place. Yet, it is 
very difficult to admit that the queen is endowed with a 
faculty that no other animal possesses, that of knowing and 
deciding the sex of her progeny beforehand. It seems to 
us that she must be guided by her instinct like all other 
beings, for she always begins, in the Spring, by laying in 
small cells, using large cells only when no others are in reach 
in the warm part of the hive. Sometimes, however, when 
she is very heavy with eggs, she lays in drone-cells as she 
comes to them. Usually it is only when the hive is warm 
