tus with me
in the country, when investigating this subject, and partly from my
apprehension of injuring other parts by pressure, which I had then
occasion to examine. However, I have clearly observed a muscular
swelling of the oviduct, where approaching the last ring of the belly;
that it then contracts and afterwards dilates in becoming membranaceous.
As I was desirous of preserving the poison bag, which is situated
exactly here, along with, the muscles aiding the motion of the sting, I
could follow the oviduct no farther. However, in another female, it
appeared that the vulva is in the last ring of the abdomen, and under
the sting. The parts expanding only while the queen lays, renders it
extremely difficult to penetrate the aperture."

We have attempted to discover what has escaped the indefatigable
Swammerdam. But his observation that the research can be made to the
greatest advantage, at the time of laying, has paved the way to us. We
have remarked that the oviduct did not issue from the body, but that the
eggs fall into a kind of cavity, where they are retained several seconds
before being laid.

On the sixth of August, we took a very fertile queen, and holding her
gently by the wings in a supine position, the whole belly was exposed.
She seized the extremity with her second pair of legs, and curved it as
much as possible. This seeming an unfavourable position for laying, we
forced her to stretch it out. The queen, oppressed with the necessity of
laying, could no longer retain her eggs. The lower part of the last ring
then separated so far from the upper part as to leave some of the inside
discovered. In this cavity the sting lay above in its sheath. As the
queen now made new efforts, we saw an egg fall into the cavity from the
end of the oviduct. The lips then closed for several seconds; they
opened again, and, in a much shorter time, dropped the egg from the
cavity.

From our own observations we found that the seminal fluid of drones
coagulated on exposure to the air, and from several experiments had so
little doubt on the subject, that whenever the female returned with the
external marks of fecundation, we thought we recognised it in the
whitish substance filling the sexual organs. It did not then occur to us
to dissect the females to ascertain the fact more particularly: but this
year, whether designing to neglect nothing, or to examine the distension
of the female organs, we determined to dissect several.