176 ANIMAL COLORATION. 



l)ees are believed to have been acquired for the purpose of 

 reminding their foes that there is a sting in the background, 

 and thus warning them off. 



But the males of these Hymenoptera are not armed with 

 .a sting, though, being sometimes weaker and more slightly 

 built than the females, they would appear to have, if anything, 

 .a greater need of one. 



The male hornets, however, when captured, move their body 

 as if about to sting, and against human assailants who do not 

 happen at the same time to be naturalists, this pretence is no 

 doubt very effective. The sting of the worker bee or wasp 

 is simply the somewhat altered ovipositor ; the workers are 

 neuter in sex, or rather imperfect females. The yellow band- 

 ing which characterises our British wasps is not confined to 

 them ; many exotic species have the same colours, which, as 

 I have already mentioned, are often met with in insects that 

 :are. for one reason or another, undesirable as food. The 

 bright colours of the male Hymenoptera must be looked upon 

 ;as a sort of mimicry, due to " arrested divergence." 



The matter, however, is not quite so simple as it might 

 appear. Originally, it may be presumed, communities of 

 wasps, hornets, etc., consisted of males and females only ; later 

 on, the stunted workers were produced, perhaps, by defective 

 nutrition. Seeing that the females and workers are the maiii- 

 :stay of the wasp colony, it is intelligible that useful variations 

 which happened to occur might be perpetuated. The males 

 principally stay at home and perform the duties of scavengers 

 in. the wasp city ; and as they have no sting, it could hardly 

 be supposed that gaudy colours were first produced in them 

 =aud then handed on by inheritance to the female. There is 

 another fact, however, which should be taken into considera- 

 tion. Many Hymenoptera have a strong odour: thus Peloptsus 



