154 BRITISH BEES. 



amongst them. Either in the velocity of their flight, or 

 in its playful evolutions and graceful undulations, they 

 are unsurpassed, and they hover in the execution of their 

 designs with pertinacious perseverance. No insect struc- 

 ture can more thoroughly exemplify the most appropriate 

 adaptation to its uses, and the most admirable elegance 

 in the formation of the means of execution. 



I thus claim for them, and which I think I may with- 

 out infraction of dispute, the distinctive rank amongst 

 insects. 



Having fixed the station of the Hymenoptera generally, 

 we have next to seek the relative rank of the natural 

 divisions into which they readily separate. 



Taking structure and instinct conjunctively, there can 

 be no doubt that the first position will be conceded to 

 that division of the Order which comprises the aculeated 

 tribes those armed with stings, some of whose mem- 

 bers, in each of the three large divisions into which they 

 fall, being social, that is, living in communities, orga- 

 nized by a peculiar polity or administration. 



These aculeates divide into, first, the fossorial Hyme- 

 noptera, or burrowers; and the equivalent branch the 

 Diploptera, or wasps, distinguished and named from 

 their folding the superior wings longitudinally in repose ; 

 secondly, the heterogeneous Hymenoptera, or ants, named 

 from the dissimilarity either in size or structure of their 

 females, a peculiarity incidental to all the social Hyme- 

 noptera, but living in community is more peculiarly cha- 

 racteristic of this division, it being in the other divisions 

 restricted to a few genera only, whereas here the soli- 

 tary habit is the exceptional. In all cases of socialism 

 there are three classes of individuals, males, females, 

 and abortive females. In the other social kinds of 



