28 HUMBLE CREATURES. 



Here we find the facets to be very numerous and 

 complex; and in the drones, which rarely quit the 

 hive except to swarm, or accompany the queen in 

 her wedding flight, they are much larger and more 

 numerous than those either of the queen or worker. 



It is not yet decided what the drones do in the 

 hive ; but to suppose, with some naturalists, that they 

 have no occupation whatever, and consequently that 

 so much additional care has been bestowed by Nature 

 upon their organs of vision without a definite object, 

 is quite opposed to our views regarding evidences of 

 design. For the credit of the " male sex," we trust 

 that they will be found to have some duty allotted 

 to them ; but of this, more hereafter. 



With respect to the simple eyes [stemmata] of the 

 Bee, they are, as before stated, three in number, and 

 disposed in a triangle between the two compound 

 eyes (PI. III. fig. 1,6 6). They are very simple in 

 structure, probably even more so than has been sup- 

 posed by some of o\xr leading physiologists. 



Siebold and others describe them as consisting of 

 two lenses, an outer meniscus lens (convex outside 

 and concave inwards), and an inner, almost globular 

 one*. So far, however, as our investigations and ex- 

 periments enable us to judge, there is only one simple 

 lens, that one being nearly globular (PI. IV. fig. 4, a) ; 

 and immediately behind this lens is the expansion of 

 the optic nerve, composed of what are termed papillos 

 — ^little bulbous subdivisions of the nerve, between 

 * The " outer lens " is a layer of integument. 



