f July, we set successively at liberty
three virgin queens four or five days old. Two flew away several times;
their absence was short and fruitless. The third profited better by her
liberty; she departed thrice; the first and second time her absence was
short; but the third lasted thirty-five minutes. She returned in a very
different state; and in such as allowed no doubt of her employment, for
she exhibited the part of a male that had rendered her a mother. We
seized her wings with one hand, and in the other received the
lenticular body, of which she had disengaged herself with her claws. The
posterior part was armed with two pincers, e. e. shelly and elastic,
which could be drawn asunder, and then resumed their original position.
Towards the anterior part of the lentil appeared the fragment of the
root of the penis; this canal had broke half a line from the lenticular
body. We allowed the queen to enter her habitation, and adapted the
entrance so that she could not leave it unknown to us.

On the seventeenth we found no eggs in the hive; the queen was as
slender as the first day; therefore the male, with which she had
copulated, had not impregnated her eggs. She was again set at liberty;
after twice departing, she returned with evidence of a second
copulation. We then confined her, and the eggs she afterwards laid
proved that the second copulation had been more successful than the
first and that there are some males more fit for impregnating queens
than others. However, it is very rare that the first copulation is
inefficient; we have only seen two that required it twice; all the rest
were impregnated by the first.

* * * * *

_Experiment 2._--On the eighteenth we put at liberty a virgin queen
twenty-seven days old, she departed twice. Her second absence was
twenty-eight minutes, and she returned with the proofs of copulation. We
prevented her from entering, and put her under a glass to see how she
would disengage the male organs. This she was unable to accomplish,
having only the table and sides of the glass for support; therefore we
introduced a bit of comb; thus providing the same conveniences as are in
a hive. Fixing herself on _it_ by the first four legs, she stretched out
the two last, and extending them along her belly seemed to press it
between them. At length introducing her claws between the two parts of
the last ring, she seized the lenticular body, and dropped it on the
t