est similarity.

The problem becomes still more difficult by reflecting on the natural
state of things, that is when fecundation has not been delayed. The
queen then lays the eggs of workers forty-six hours after copulation,
and continues for the subsequent eleven months to lay these alone: and
it is only after this period that a considerable and uninterrupted
laying of the eggs of drones commences. When, on the contrary,
impregnation is retarded after the twentieth day, the queen begins, from
the forty-sixth hour, to lay the eggs of males, and no other kind during
her whole life. As, in the natural state, she lays the eggs of workers
only, during the first eleven months, it is clear that these, and the
male eggs, are not indiscriminately mixed in the oviducts. Undoubtedly
they occupy a situation corresponding to the principles that regulate
laying: the eggs of workers are first, and those of drones behind them.
Farther, it appears that the queen can lay no male eggs until those of
workers, occupying the first place in the oviducts, are discharged. Why,
then, is this order inverted by retarded copulation? How does it happen
that all the workers eggs which the queen ought to lay, if fecundation
was in due time, now wither and disappear, yet do not, impede the
passage of the eggs of drones, which occupy only the second place in the
ovaries. Nor is this all. I have satisfied myself that a single
copulation is sufficient to impregnate the whole eggs that a queen will
lay in the course of at least two years. I have even reason to think,
that a single copulation will impregnate all the eggs that she will lay
during her whole life: but I want absolute proof for more than two
years. This, which is truly a very singular fact in itself, renders the
influence of retarded fecundation still more difficult to be accounted
for. Since a single copulation suffices, it is clear that the male fluid
acts from the first moment on all the eggs that the queen will lay in
two years. It gives them, according to your principles, that degree of
_animation_ that afterwards effects their successive expansion. Having
received the first impressions of life, they grow, they mature, so to
speak, until the day they are laid: and as the laws of laying are
constant, because the eggs of the first eleven months are always those
of workers, it is evident that those which appear first are also the
eggs that come soonest to maturity. Thus, in the natural state,