202 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



spermatozoa should be mounted in glycerin. If stain- 

 ing be desired, a minute quantity of the purple 

 added to the glycerin will accomplish it, as, in a 

 few weeks, the spermatozoa will have absorbed every 

 trace of the dye. 



To return. The testes, although retaining partial 

 activity, shrink and flatten as the drone reaches virile 

 maturity. The mucous glands, secreting a slimy 

 liquid, give to the separate spermatozoa some cohesive 

 power, presently utilised. The spermatozoa, mingled 

 with mucus, pass continually onwards, through the 

 ductus ejaculatorius (de), into the bean, where a 

 mysterious arrangement of the myriad threads occurs. 

 They fill up the bean (b), and their mass is now 

 denominated the spermatophore (seen lying under ts 

 in the Figure). The ductus ejaculatorius has walls 

 of great muscularity, and, in the act of mating, it is 

 one of the main forces for putting the organ right 

 side out, so that it becomes external to the body. 

 The rounded little white, and somewhat fleshy, part, 

 the bean (b), is united to two brown, crescent-shaped 

 scales (s), and two triagular ones (is), which are rudi- 

 ments of the usual armor copulatrix of the Hymeno- 

 ptera. The bean, and the remaining parts, from o 

 to m, are surrounded by a membranous sheath, which 

 remains intact after the expulsion mentioned above. 

 The curious, bright brown ridges (r, A, and r , E) hinder 

 the withdrawing of the organ during coition, and aid in 

 tearing it, according to rule, from the body of the male. 

 Below the ridges are found two membranous sacs 

 (h), which are always more or less filled with air, and 

 have been called pneumophyses from this fact. In 



