1*EIIFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 125 



that a queen may always be tlistinguishcd, both from 

 the workers and males, by the colour of her body\ If 

 this observation be restricted to the colour of some 

 parts of her body, it is correct ; but it will not apply to 

 all generally (unless, as I suspect may be the case, by 

 the term body he means the abdomen), for, in all that 

 I have had an opportunity of examining, the prevailing 

 colour, as I have stated it, is the same. 



The head is not larger than that of the workers ; but 

 the tongue is shorter and more slender, with straighter 

 maxilkc. The mandibles are forficate, and do not jut 

 out like theirs into a prominent angle ; they are of the 

 colour of pitch with a red tinge, and terminate in two 

 teeth, the exterior being acute, and the interior blunt 

 or truncated. The labrum or upper-lip is fulvous; 

 and the cmtennw are piceous. 



In the trunk, the fegulce or scales that defend the 

 base of the wings are rufo-piceous. The wings reach 

 only to the tip of the third abdominal segment. The 

 tarsi and the apex of the fibice are rufo-fulvous. The 

 posterior tibia; are plane above and covered with short 

 adpressed hairs, having neither the corbicida (or mar- 

 ginal fringe of hairs for carrying the masses of pollen) 

 nor the pecten ; and the posterior plantce have neither 

 the brush formed of hairs set in striae, nor the auricle 

 at the base. 



The abdomen is considerably longer than the head 

 and trunk taken together, receding from the trunk, 

 elongato-conical, and rather sharp at the anus. The 

 dorsal segments are fulvous at the tip ; covered with 

 very short, pallid, and, in certain lights, shining ad- 

 ' Reaumur, V. 375. 



