158 INTERNAL ANATOMY OF INSECTS. - 
_ The manner in which the eggs of insects are fecundated 
by the male sperm is one of those mysteries of Nature 
that are not yet fully elucidated and understood. We 
can readily conceive that all the eggs may be fertilized 
by a single intercourse in the case of insects which, like 
the Ephemere and Trichoptera, exclude the whole mass at 
once; or like many moths and butterflies, in a very short 
time afterwards ; but the subject becomes much more dif- 
ficult to explain when we advert to the female of the hive- 
bee, the whole number of whose eggs, deposited in two 
years, are, as Huber has demonstrated, in like manner 
fertilized by a single act*:—if you bear in mind, however, 
what: I have lately observed with regard to Malpighi’s 
discovery of a sperm-reservoir in insects, you will more 
readily comprehend how in this case a gradual fecunda- 
tion may take place. The principal objection to this so- 
lution of the difficulty in the case before us, is derived 
from the very small size of the organ supposed to be des- 
tined for this purpose —it being scarcely bigger than the 
head ofa pin®: it seems therefore incredible that it should 
retain any portion of an extraneous fluid at the end of 
twelve or eighteen months, and still more unlikely that 
the fluid should in the interval have sufficed for the 
slightest moistening of not fewer than 30,000 or 40,000 
eggs. The only hypothesis that seems at all to square 
with this fact, is that of Dr. Haighton,—that impregna- 
tion is the result not of any actual contact of the sperm 
with the eggs, but of some unknown sympathetic in- 
fluence‘, or rather perhaps of some penetrating effluvia 
* Huber Nouvel. Observ.i.106. » Swamm. Bibl. Nat. t. xix. fd. 
© Philos. Trans. 1797. 89. 
