3^ ANTS. 



chitinized and furnished with numerous tactile sense organs, in all 

 probability also have a clasping function. The inner paramera are 

 very delicate. In some ants they have serrated edges which probably 

 serve to hold them in place in the vagina of the female. In addition 

 to the genital valves there is a pair of small, hairy appendages, the 

 penicilli, attached to the tergite, or dorsal plate of the tenth abdominal 

 segment. There can be little doubt that these represent the cerci of 

 Blattoid and other primitive insects and must therefore belong to the 

 anal or eleventh abdominal segment. The presence or absence of the 

 penicilli and the conformation, permanent retraction or protrusion of 

 the different paramera are used in classification as valuable diagnostic 

 characters. Although we may be tempted to homologize the three 

 pairs of male genital appendages with the three pairs of appendages 

 which go to form the sting in the female, it is very doubtful whether 

 more titan one of these pairs, the stipites, develop from rudiments of 

 the embryonic walking limbs. If this is true, the stipites correspond 

 with the pair of appendages of the ninth segment in the female, which 

 give rise to the sting sheath, and the volsellae, lacinise and penis are 

 merely differentiations of the median portion of the ninth sternite. 



