Mr. Hunter's Observations on Bees. 187 
a male to her, and allowed them to be connected their full time? 
They were in copulation ten hours. I then put her into a box 
by herself, and when she laid her eggs, I numbered the dif- 
ferent parcels as she laid them, viz. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ; these eggs 
I preserved, and in the summer following I perceived that the 
No. 5 was as prolific as the No. 1 ; so that this one copulation 
was capable of impregnating the whole brood : and therefore 
the male influence must go either along the oviduct its whole 
length, and impregnate the incomplete eggs, as well as the 
complete, which appears to me not likely ; or those not yet 
formed were impregnated from the reservoir in the act of 
laying : for I conceived that these bags, by containing semen, 
had a power of impregnating the egg as it passed along 
to the anus, just as it traversed the mouth of the duct of com- 
munication. 
Finding that eggs completely formed, could be impregnated 
by the semen, and also finding that the before-mentioned bag 
was a reservoir for the semen till wanted, I wished next to dis- 
cover if they could be impregnated from the semen of this bag ; 
but as this must be done without the act of copulation, I con- 
ceived it proper, first, to see whether the ova of insects might 
be impregnated without the natural act of copulation, by ap- 
plying the male semen over the ova, just as they were laid. 
The following experiments were made on the silk-moth : 
EXPERIMENT I. 
I took a female moth, as soon as she escaped from her pod, 
and kept her carefully by herself, upon a clean card, till she 
began to lay ; then I took males that were ready for copula- 
13 b 2 
