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PEEFACE. 



There are few people who are not more or less interested 

 in ants, bees, and wasps, and their habits, and yet there 

 are very few who systematically take up their study. 

 Probably this is, to a certain extent, due to the somewhat 

 uncompromisingly scientific look of the literature offered 

 to them, and it is hoped that the coloured figures in the 

 larger edition of this work will remove, at any rate to a 

 certain extent, the apparent difficulties of the subject. 



The study of the aculeates is full of interest. On 

 account of their nest- making habits they lend themselves 

 peculiarly well to an investigation of their life histories, 

 which abound in interesting details. The diversity of 

 their structure also, and the wonderful specialization of 

 the various organs of each species to its necessary habits, 

 give a field for examination and study possessed, the 

 writer thinks, by no other group of insects. 



The fertilization of plants depends greatly on their visits, 

 and there seems to be in many cases a distinct correlation 

 of structure between insect and flower, the short-tongued 

 bees visiting only flowers whose honey is near the surface, 

 as in such orders as the Rosaca', Componlfx, &c., the flowers 

 with long tubes, such as those of the Lnhiatr tribe, being 

 dependent, so far as the Ilymenoptera are concerned, on 

 the visits of the long-tongued bees. Hermann Miiiler, in 

 his celebrated work, " Die Befruchten der Blinnen, &c.," 

 has gone very carefully into this subject, and at the 

 present time Messrs. Willis & Burkill are publishing, in 



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