* * * * * _Experiment 3._--On the nineteenth we set at liberty a queen four days old; she departed twice; her first absence was short; the second lasted thirty minutes, and then she returned with the marks of fecundation. As we wished to obtain the male organs entire, it was necessary to prevent the queen from breaking them by extracting them with her feet; we therefore suddenly killed her, and cut off the last rings in order to lay the vulva open. But though deprived of animation, so much life remained in these parts that the lenticular body was thrown out spontaneously. Under the pincers appeared the remnant of a cylindrical body which had broken near the origin and remained in the female. This body was very small at the origin; it afterwards sensibly enlarged; next contracting by degrees, it terminated in a sharp point. We found the point engaged up to the gland in the excretory canal, and the rest in the vulva. * * * * * _Experiment 4._--We set two virgin queens at liberty on the twentieth. The first had been abroad on the preceding days, but the scarcity of males prevented her from being previously fecundated. She returned with the organs of a male. We tried to prevent her from extracting them, but she did this so expeditiously with her feet, that we could not accomplish it. She was then allowed to enter the hive. The second queen departed twice. Her first absence was short as usual; the second lasted about half an hour, and she returned impregnated. Having killed her as suddenly as possible, we laid open the vulva. The lenticular body was deposited as in every queen hitherto dissected; the pincers were situated under the excretory canal. Some parts not easily distinguishable were pressed between the laminae, and their office seemed to consist in forcing the extremity of the lentil to approach the orifice of the vagina, and apply so forcibly to it that some exertion was necessary to separate them. We previously examined them, with a very powerful magnifier. Then a peculiarity which had escaped us was perceptible. In drawing out the lenticular body, there proceeded from the vagina a minute part, v. adhering to the posterior end of the lentil, and situated below the plates. It spontaneously retracted into the lentil, like the horns of a snail. It appeared white, very short, and cylindrical. Under the pincers was a little half coagulated seminal fluid at the bottom of the vulva. Though much could be expressed, there was none pure; it was almost liquid, but soon coagulated, and formed a whitish inorganic mass. This observation carefully made removed all our doubts, and demonstrated that what we had taken for the penis of males was nothing but the seminal fluid, which had coagulated and assumed the interior figure of the vagina. The only hard part introduced by the male, was the short cylindrical point which retracted into the lentil, when we separated it.