128 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



plantce resembles that of the tibice ; underneath they 

 are furnished with a scopula or brush of stiff hairs set 

 in rows : at the base they are armed with stilF bristles, 

 and exteriorly w ith an acute appendage or auricle. 



The abdomen is a little longer than the head and 

 trunk together ; oblong, and rather heart-shaped — a 

 transverse section of it is triangular. It is covered 

 with long'ish flavo-pallid hairs : the first segment is 

 short with longer hairs ; the base of the three interme- 

 diate segments is covered, and as it were banded, with 

 pale hairs. The apex of the three intermediate ven- 

 tral segments is rather fulvescent, and their base is di- 

 stinguished on each side by a trapeziform wax-pocket 

 covered by a thin membrane. The sting, or rather r«- 

 g'lna^ of the spicitia is straight. 



I have before observed to you that there are two 

 sorts of workers, tlie wax-makers and nurses^. They 

 may also he further divided into fertile and sterile*^ : 

 for some of them, which in their infancy are supposed 

 to have partaken of some portion of the royal jelly, lay 

 male eggs. There is found in some hives, according 

 to Huber, a kind of bees, which from liavingless down 

 upon the head and thorax appear blacker than the 

 others, by whom they are always expelled from the 

 hive, and often killed. Perfect ovaries, upon dissec- 

 tion, were discovered in these bees, though not fur- 

 nished with eggs. This discovery induced M"'' Ju- 

 rine, the lady who dissected them, to examine the 



•See Vol. I. 2d Ed. p. 190. 



* In hives where a, queen laying male eggs has been killed, the workers , 

 continue to make only male cells, though supplied Avith a fertile queoHj 

 and the fertile workers lay eggs in them. Shiradi, 258- 



