BEE MANUAL. 69 



the spermatozoa through the opening of the micropyle ; and 

 this leads him to the very natural reflection — 



' ' What children we must feel ourselves, how utterly baffled and 

 confounded by the reflection that this tiny spermatozoon, eight or ten 

 millions of which the queen may carry in her microscopic spermatheca, 

 has about it — somehow and somewhere — that which shall determine, 

 not sex merely, but all distinctions of species, such as the external 

 form of the body, the length and modelling of the tongue, the arrange- 

 ment of the pigment cells, the colour of the covering plates, the tint of 

 every hair, and the general temper and disposition of the resulting 

 insect, besides a thousand other peculiarities ! We speak of what the 

 microscope lias revealed, and without gainsaying it is surpassingly 

 wonderful ; but how little have we found, compared with what lies 

 behind!" 



And in another place he has a beautifully expressed passage 

 which we gladly copy as an appropriate conclusion to our slight 

 survey of the anatomy and physiology of the bee. 



" Our bees," he concludes, " are miracles of creative skill, which to 

 a better insight but thinly veils the Worker whose understanding is 

 infinite ; and we are not in our weakest moments when He, ' clearly 

 seen by the things that are made,' draws us to bow the headand 

 worship." 



DEVELOPMENT FROM THE EGG TO THE BEE. 



Having now come to understand the manner in which the 

 egg, whether male or female, comes to be laid, we may examine 

 the egg itself, and the way in which the germ it contains 

 becomes developed into the full-grown insect. 



Fig. 19.— QUEEN'S EGG UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. 



The egg, when laid in the cell, requires a tolerably sharp 

 sight to distinguish it as it lies at the bottom, attached by one 

 end to the comb by means of some glutinous fluid with which 



