oct.' — dec. 1857.] On Moths and Bees. 



115 



ture causes the movements of spermatozoa to cease and become 

 inert, he subjected a queen to a very low temperature in an ice- 

 house ; she recovered, and afterwards laid thousands of eggs, yet 

 from all these were only males evolved. The third experiment 

 was performed with the crossing of Italian and German bees. 

 These, although of the same species, are found to differ most re- 

 markably in appearance and disposition, and in the mixed breed 

 which resulted, the drone offspring without exception presented 

 the same variety as the queen-mother, thus affording a very strong 

 negative proof that drone eggs do not require the interposition of 

 the male bee. This matter has, however, been subjected to fur- 

 ther proof by Leuckart and Siebold, for they examined freshly 

 laid eggs, and in numerous instances they detected spermatic fila- 

 ments in or on worker-eggs, while none could be found in drone- 

 eggs. The experiments of Siebold upon this point seem to have 

 been conducted with great nicety and care. He says : — 



" I soon convinced myself that there was no possibility of discovering 

 the delicate seminal filament between the granulo- vesicular yelk-masses, 

 the linear object to be sought for was too subtle to be capable of discovery 

 with certainty amongst the many mutually-crossing outlines of the yelk 

 vesicles ; after various vain endeavours to render the interior of the bee's 

 egg accessible to an inquiring eye, I came at last to the idea of employing an 

 artifice which I had soon acquired by practice, and which allowed me to 

 survey at least a portion of the inner space of the bee's egg with great 

 clearness an tranquillity. I crushed a bee's egg quite gently with a very 

 thin glass plate, and so that it was ruptured at its lower pole, opposite to 

 the micropylar apparatus, and the yelk gradually flowed out at this spot, 

 by which a clear empty space was produced at the upper pole within the 

 micropylar apparatus, between the egg-envelopes and the yelk which was 

 retiring downwards." 



Having thus microscopically examined the new-laid eggs of 

 bees, he arrives at the following conclusion : — 



" Amongst the fifty female bee-eggs examined by me with the greatest 

 care and conscientiousness, thirty furnished a positive result ; that is to 

 say, in thirty I could prove the existence of seminal filaments, in which 

 movements could even be detected in three eggs; of the other twenty eggs, 

 twelve were unsuccessful in their preparation." 



