84 
THE BROOD. 
they attain to the state of perfect insects on the 
twenty -four tli day. 
We may briefly notice here the statement of Huber 
respecting the order in which the different kinds of 
eggs are arranged in the ovarium of the Queen, and 
the law which regulates her laying. He says, that 
“nature does not allow the Queen the choice of the 
eggs she is to lay that “it is ordained she shall, at 
a certain time of the year, produce those of males, 
and, at another time, the eggs of workers ; an order 
which cannot be inverted that “the eggs are not 
indiscriminately mixed in the ovaries of the Queen, 
but arranged so that at a particular season she can 
lay only a certain kind that “ she can lay no male 
eggs until those of the workers, occupying the first 
place in the oviducts, are discharged.’’* We do 
not mean to question this statement, as holding true 
generally, but we think it made in terms too unquali- 
fied, and that there are palpable and frequent excep- 
tions. He has himself acknowledged elsewhere that 
a Queen hatched in spring will sometimes lay fifty or 
sixty eggs of males during the course of the ensuing 
summer, arid we have repeatedly witnessed the fact. 
Now, this takes place only in certain circumstances, 
and under certain conditions, namely, that the family 
of the Queen so laying shall have been a very early 
swarm, that it shall abound in population, and that 
the season shall be genial, and the secretion of honey 
in the flowers plentiful. In such a favourable junc- 
ture of circumstances, it almost invariably happens 
* Huber, 44 and 136. 
