Il8 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



to include the spot the stemmata would normally 

 have taken. In other respects, the head was perfect; 

 the antennae, jaws, upper lip, and tongue being well 

 developed. The dotted white line (B) shows the 

 space the eyes should have filled. Since albinism 

 is very uncommon in insects, I have sent specimens 

 of these bees to the Natural History Museum, South 

 Kensington, where they may at any time be seen. 



It remains for us to compare the eyes of worker, 

 queen, and drone. Possibly, considerable variation exists ; 

 so, for the purpose of comparison, I operated upon 

 bees from the same stock in each case. The worker 

 spends much of her time in the open air. Accurate 

 and powerful vision are essentials to the proper pro- 

 secution of her labours, and here I found the com- 

 pound eye possessing about 6300 facets. In the mother 

 of this worker I expected to find a less number, for 

 queens know little of daylight. After wedding, they 

 are out of doors but once, or at most twice, in a 

 year. This example verified my forecast, by showing 

 4920 facets on each side of the head. A son of this 

 mother, much a stay-at-home also, was next taken. 

 His facets were irregular in size, those at the lower 

 part of the eye being much less than those near the 

 top; but they reached the immense number of 13,090 

 on each side of the head. Why should the visual ap- 

 paratus of the drone be so extraordinarily developed 

 beyond that of the worker, whose need of the eye 

 seems at first to be so much more pressing than his? 

 I have previously suggested the reason in considerino- 

 the antenna, but facts yet to come before us would 

 render further consideration of the argument premature., 



