232 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 
that of the bee, and may be divided into three parts, viz. : 
head, neck, and hind body, which are connected together by 
a thread-like organ. ‘The head consists almost exclusively 
of two large eyes, two antenne, and denticulated jaws, and 
in some species with a proboscis for sucking the nectar of 
flowers. On the under part of the neck are placed six legs, 
and above them four transparent, membranaceous wings. 
Most of the females, and those without sex, as the workers 
of bees and ants, are armed with a sting, and occasionally 
with venom, which they infuse into the puncture. On this 
account the whole tribe has been called Aculeata (stingers 
or piercers). Gall-wasps, ichneumon-flies, wasps, ants, and 
bees, with many others, come under this denomination, and 
belong to this order. All the females are provided with an 
ovipositor, which in some species has the form of a hair, in 
others the form of a saw, and in others that of a sting. 
The two former are prominent organs, which are visible 
and can not sting, except into the soft skin of caterpillars, 
where they sometimes deposit eggs, but the latter always 
lies concealed in the body until used as a weapon of defense 
or revenge. 
The larvee of Hymenopterous insects are of various forms. 
Some of them resemble caterpillars, having eighteen or even 
twenty feet, others are maggots without any feet or eyes. 
Most of the larve are of this latter description; but those 
of the wood and leaf wasps have six horny feet on the neck, 
and twelve or fourteen fleshy ones on the hind body. All 
the larve of this order are peculiar for living in clean places, 
such as cells artificially built of wax, pieces of wood, leaves, 
or mortar; or they dwell in wood, in holes under ground, in 
gall-apples or oak balls, and many live in caterpillars, but 
none inhabit carrion, dunghills, or other putrid and filthy 
places. When full grown, all these larvae, like those of 
butterflies, metamorphose themselves into a cocoon woven 
of silk. 
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