THE DRONE. 81 
ergy. The slow and weak in the race die without heirs, so that 
the survival of the fittest is not an accident, but a predetermina- 
tion. In previous chapters we have considered his highly-devel- 
oped eyes, meeting at the vertex of his head, his multitudinous 
smell-hollows, and his strong large wings, the advantage of 
which now appears in a clearer light; his quickness in discover- 
ing a mate, whose neighborhood is to him filled with irresistible 
odours, and his ability in keeping her in view during 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 vitality for a long time, we accidentally ascer- 
tained, in the Summer of 1852, 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 ex- 
truded, 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 singu- 
lar provision is unquestionably intended to give additional 
security to the queen when she leaves her hive to have inter- 
course with the drone. Huber first discovered that she 
returned with the male organ torn from the drone, and still 
adhering to her body. If it were not for this arrangement, 
her spermatheca could not be filled, unless she remained so 
long in the air with the drone, as to incur a very great risk 
of being devoured by birds. In one instance, some days 
after the impregnation of a queen, we found the male organ,* 
* We give, as interesting in this connection, the following extract from Mr. 
Langstroth’s journal: ‘‘ August 25th, 1852.—Found the male organ protrading 
from a young queen; could not remove it without exerting so much force that 
I feared it would kill her. Dr. Joseph Leidy examined this queen-bee with 
the microscope, so as to demonstrate that—to use his words—‘it was the penis 
and its appendages of a male, corresponding in all its anatomical peculiaritics, 
with the same organs examined, at the same time, in other drones. The tes- 
ticles and vasa deferentia of these drones were found to be full of the spermatic 
fluid. The spermatheca of the queen was distended with the same semi-finid, 
spermatic matter.’ This one examination demonstrates that the drones are 
males, and that they impregnate the queen by actual coition.’’ 
