206 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



the large mass of material to be transferred. What 

 has been said upon Flight will more fully explain 

 the case of the drone. The more distended the 

 stomach (and the male always leaves the hive, on 

 a love tour, loaded with honey) the more easily is 

 the extrusion accomplished ; but it would be utterly 

 impossible unless the air sacs were stretched to their 

 utmost capacity ; so that coition is impracticable on 

 foot. This explains why Huber never saw the accouple- 

 ment between drones and a virgin queen shut to- 

 gether in a box, and why fertilisation in confinement 

 — the dream of enthusiastic apiarists — has, to this 

 hour, presented difficulties which would appear to be 

 practically unconquerable. The natural laws against 

 interbreeding shows this fact to be beautiful in its 

 fitness. The queen is not importuned in the hive, 

 and, when she flies abroad, the fleetest drone is more 

 likely to succeed in his addresses than another, and 

 thus he impresses upon posterity some part of his 

 own superior activity and energy. The slow and 

 weak in the race die without heirs, so that the sur- 

 vival of the fittest is not an accident, but a predeter- 

 mination. In previous chapters we have considered 

 his highly developed eyes, meeting at the vertex of 

 his head; his multitudinous smell hollows, and. his 

 strong and large wings, the advantage of which now 

 appears in a clearer light ; his quickness in discover- 

 ing a mate, whose neighbourhood is to him filled with 

 irresistible odours, and his ability in keeping her in 

 view during pursuit, are no less helpful to his purpose 

 than fleetness on the wing ; but the success of his 

 suit brings the close of his career, for, quickly after 



