128 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 157 



tions, and hastens the filling and capping, which 

 is always more quickly and speedily done at the 

 top than at the bottom. It is more than likely 

 that the future hive will be so constructed that 

 the entire hive, as well as the crate holding the 

 sections, can be inverted at pleasure. This will 

 give all the advantages named above with the 

 least possible expense of time. The changing of 

 the comb does no injury in any way, and is 

 thought, by those who have tried it most, to 

 prevent swarming. Turning the combs over 

 causes the bees to tear down the queen- cells. 



The late Mr. Samuel Wagoner suggested that 

 the laying of fecundated eggs (those which de- 

 velop into females) or unfecundated (those which 

 produce drones) was automatic, and not an act of 

 volition. The small worker-cells, he said, would 

 compress the queen's abdomen, and thus force 

 the sperm-cells from the spermatheca, and the 

 eggs would be impregnated. The larger drone- 

 cells would fail to exert this necessary com- 

 pression, and so the eggs would pass unfecun- 

 dated. 



Bee-keepers now generally think that the queen 

 is no such machine. Why the muscular apparatus 

 connected with the spermatheca, except that it is 

 to be used voluntarily to extrude the spermatozoa 

 as the queen may desire? Sometimes worker- 

 cells just started receive eggs which always de- 

 velop into worker or female bees. Here the cells 

 could not compress the queen's abdomen. The 

 queen also lays fecundated eggs in the queen- 

 cells, which are larger even than the cells which 

 receive the unfecundated eggs, — the so-called 

 drone-cells. That this act of adding or with- 

 holding the sperm-cells from the eggs is an act 

 of volition on the part of the queen, is further 

 proved in the fact that young queens, just be- 

 ginning to lay, often scatter drone-eggs here and 

 there in worker or the small cells. These, of 

 course, produce drones, which only vary from 

 the usual drones in their smaller size, which is 

 necessitated by the smaller cells. This is obvi- 

 ously a mistake, and seldom occurs after the first 

 two or three days of the queen's life. Now, may 

 we not consider this the result of inexperience, 

 the mistake of a novice ? The queen has never 

 yet used the complex muscular apparatus of the 

 spermatheea, and al first fails in her attempt fco 

 work it satisfactorily. Soon she gains by ex- 

 perience, and makes no more failures. To assert 

 this is no more irrational than to say that a 

 eolt will stumble and fall when it first begins to 

 walk. 



The observations of Sir John Lubbock and 

 others as to wasps bear directly on this question. 

 He finds that the mother-wasp invariably stocks 



the cell where the unimpregnated egg — the one 

 that is to produce the male, which is considera- 

 bly smaller than the female — is deposited with 

 a less number of insects than the one where 

 the impregnated egg which is to develop into a 

 female is placed. Here we see that the mother- 

 wasp not only knows the kind of an egg she is 

 to lay, but she provisions the cells with exact 

 reference to the necessities of the case. As the 

 wasp puts just so many insects in each cell, it is 

 evident that she has learned to count. Who shall 

 be so prejudiced as to say that her waspship 

 does not consider her act in laying the special 

 egg, and does not think and plan her maternal 

 acts looking to the larders of her yet unborn? 

 We all know how close the relationship between 

 wasps and bees is. Now, if a wasp realizes what 

 she is doing as she adds or withholds the sperm- 

 cells, to such an extent that it influences her daily 

 acts, and modifies her performance of daily duties, 

 who shall say that the queen-bee, of higher devel- 

 opment and structure, does not think upon her 

 acts as she places the eggs in worker or drone 

 cells? Here, then, is another proof that egg-lay- 

 ing with the queen is a matter of intelligent vo- 

 lition ; and far be it from me to say that the 

 queen does not consider the size of her home, 

 the size of her family, and the condition of her 

 larder, as she passes in stately mein over the 

 combs, stocking the worker or drone cells as 

 circumstances dictate. If such volition and dis- 

 cretion are exercised, it makes plain many pecul- 

 iarities noticed in studying bees. It makes it 

 easy to understand why there is so much varia- 

 tion as to the swarming-habit, drone-production, 

 etc., of different colonies of bees. Each queen 

 has her own notions. A. J. Cook. 



LEGIBILITY OF LETTERS OF THE 

 ALPHABET. 



Mr. James Cattell has recently published in 

 Mind the results of studies upon brain and eye 

 inertia, of which the following will be found of 

 interest. Some alphabets are harder to see than 

 others, and the different letters of the same alpha/ 

 bet are not equally legible. Reading is one of 

 the largest factors in our modern life, but at the 

 same time a thoroughly artificial act. Here, as 

 everywhere in nature, the organism shows its 

 power of accommodating itself to its environment; 

 but the large percentage of children who become 

 shortsighted and weak-eyed, and suffer from head- 

 aches, gives us sharp warning, and puts us on 

 our guard, lest these diseases become hereditary. 

 Considering the immense tension put, of neces- 

 sity, upon eye and brain, it is of the most vital 



