diff --git a/pymongo/message.py b/pymongo/message.py
index 3e1efa27a..bb2a0f63e 100644
--- a/pymongo/message.py
+++ b/pymongo/message.py
@@ -966,7 +966,12 @@ class _OpReply(object):
         """Construct an _OpReply from raw bytes."""
         # PYTHON-945: ignore starting_from field.
         flags, cursor_id, _, number_returned = cls.UNPACK(msg[:20])
-        return cls(flags, cursor_id, number_returned, msg[20:])
+
+        documents = msg[20:]
+        if not isinstance(msg, bytes):
+            # msg is a memoryview in Python 3.
+            documents = documents.tobytes()
+        return cls(flags, cursor_id, number_returned, documents)
 
 
 def _first_batch(sock_info, db, coll, query, ntoreturn,
diff --git a/pymongo/network.py b/pymongo/network.py
index 7f248f1f0..e50caea25 100644
--- a/pymongo/network.py
+++ b/pymongo/network.py
@@ -34,6 +34,8 @@ try:
 except ImportError:
     _SELECT_ERROR = OSError
 
+from bson.py3compat import PY3
+
 from pymongo import helpers, message
 from pymongo.common import MAX_MESSAGE_SIZE
 from pymongo.errors import (AutoReconnect,
@@ -164,22 +166,48 @@ def receive_message(sock, request_id, max_message_size=MAX_MESSAGE_SIZE):
     return _OpReply.unpack(_receive_data_on_socket(sock, length - 16))
 
 
-def _receive_data_on_socket(sock, length):
-    msg = b""
-    while length:
-        try:
-            chunk = sock.recv(length)
-        except (IOError, OSError) as exc:
-            if _errno_from_exception(exc) == errno.EINTR:
-                continue
-            raise
-        if chunk == b"":
-            raise AutoReconnect("connection closed")
+# memoryview was introduced in Python 2.7 but we only use it on Python 3
+# because before 2.7.4 the struct module did not support memoryview:
+# https://bugs.python.org/issue10212.
+# In Jython, using slice assignment on a memoryview results in a
+# NullPointerException.
+if not PY3:
+    def _receive_data_on_socket(sock, length):
+        buf = bytearray(length)
+        i = 0
+        while length:
+            try:
+                chunk = sock.recv(length)
+            except (IOError, OSError) as exc:
+                if _errno_from_exception(exc) == errno.EINTR:
+                    continue
+                raise
+            if chunk == b"":
+                raise AutoReconnect("connection closed")
 
-        length -= len(chunk)
-        msg += chunk
+            buf[i:i + len(chunk)] = chunk
+            i += len(chunk)
+            length -= len(chunk)
 
-    return msg
+        return bytes(buf)
+else:
+    def _receive_data_on_socket(sock, length):
+        buf = bytearray(length)
+        mv = memoryview(buf)
+        bytes_read = 0
+        while bytes_read < length:
+            try:
+                chunk_length = sock.recv_into(mv[bytes_read:])
+            except (IOError, OSError) as exc:
+                if _errno_from_exception(exc) == errno.EINTR:
+                    continue
+                raise
+            if chunk_length == 0:
+                raise AutoReconnect("connection closed")
+
+            bytes_read += chunk_length
+
+        return mv
 
 
 def _errno_from_exception(exc):