284 HGIDE. 
is flat on its upper surface and destitute of the carine 
observable in the other British species; its sides are 
rather dilated at the base and somewhat recurved. The 
animal is oval and convex ; the eyes large and lateral, with 
many hexagonal facets; those, however, of the external 
margin have their outer edge circular (a peculiarity now 
ascertained to occur in the hexagonal structure of the 
hive bee, which has lately been the cause of considerable 
discussion among Entomologists). In our figure, a, the 
third or right-hand row of facets is the external one. 
The upper antenne are short, with a ten-jointed flagel- 
lum, whilst the lower ones have the same part formed of 
about eighteen articulations. The palpiform appendage 
of the mandible is very slender and terminated by a 
short thin and curved hook-like joint. The three an- 
terior pairs of legs are strong and terminated by power- 
ful hooked fingers; the middle joints in the first pair are 
very short, but in the third pair the second and third 
joints are armed with small conical tubercles; the four 
posterior pairs of legs are longer and more slender, the 
under edge of the terminal joints being spinose, the 
spines being set in transverse rows. The lateral appen- 
dages of the tail are narrow and of nearly equal size, the 
inner plate of each pair being strongly emarginate on its 
outer margin near the extremity, which is ciliated. In 
one sex these organs are accompanied on the inner edge 
by an elongated conical horny plate, represented in our 
middle left-hand figure.* 
Although the species was introduced by Samouelle 
into his work on British species (no locality, however, 
* In our principal figure of this species the articulation at the base of this 
narrow plate has been accidentally omitted, giving to the fifth segment of the 
tail the appearance of being produced on each side of the terminal joint 
into a long narrow point. 
