Separating the lenticular substance from the excretory canal, where it was attached, we drew along with it a white body, adhering by one extremity, and having the other engaged in the vagina. Towards the end of the lentil, where the substance adhered, it appeared cylindrical, then it swelled, and again contracted, to dilate anew in a greater degree than at first; afterwards it contracted and terminated in a point. A powerful magnifier was required to see all this. When pulled from the lenticular body, the part was commonly broke, and also when extracted by the queens from themselves. The figure and situation seemed to authorise our considering it the penis itself, and the lenticular body only an appendage. But the last queen we examined exhibited a peculiarity that induced us to doubt the fact, and led us to suspect that this body is nothing else than the seminal fluid itself, moulded and coagulated in the vagina, and which from its viscosity adheres to the lenticular substance, and accompanies it when separated from the vagina. In this queen was found a little extravasated white matter, near the opening of the vagina. This, though at first liquid, soon coagulated in the air as the seminal fluid of drones does. In separating the lenticular body from the vagina, we drew along with it a thread which broke near the lentil; and seemed of too little consistence for the penis of a male. The lenticular bodies, found in our queens, appeared larger than in the males we dissected, and we have remarked with M. de Reaumur, that these parts are not of equal size in every male.
_Experiment 1._--On the tenth of 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.