THE GENESIS OF THE QUEEN loi 



and worker were only those of degree. If the 

 queen were nothing but a large-sized worker-bee, 

 in whom certain organs — which were atrophied in 

 the worker — had received their full development, 

 it would be a fact within comprehension ; but the 

 queen differs from the worker not only in size and 

 the capability of her organism, but also on several 

 important points of structure. And how can mere 

 food and air and circumstance produce structural 

 change ? The worker has many bodily appliances, 

 special members ingeniously adapted to her daily 

 tasks, of which the queen is wholly destitute ; 

 while the physical organism of the queen varies 

 from that of the worker in several important 

 degrees. 



Some of these must be enumerated. The ab- 

 domen of the worker is comparatively short and 

 rounded : that of the queen is larger and longer, 

 and comes to a fairly sharp point. The jaws of 

 the queen are notched on their inner cutting edge : 

 the worker's jaws are smooth like the edge of a 

 knife. The tongue of the worker has a spatula 

 at its extremity, and is furnished with sensitive 

 hairs : the tongue of the queen is shorter, the 

 spatula is smaller, while the hairs show greater 

 length. The worker-bee has a complicated system 

 of wax-secreting discs under the horny plates of 

 her abdomen : in the queen these are absent, nor 

 can the most elementary trace of them be dis- 

 covered. In their nerve-systems the two show 



