280 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 
bees, the peculiarities of which did not escape Mr. Kirby ; he, how- 
ever, speaks of the neuters of these species, and suspects that they 
nidificate under ground. (Monogr. vol. i. p. 210.) St. Fargeau, however, 
taking into consideration their structural incapability to form their own 
nests, has regarded them as parasitic, and separated them from the 
true humble bees, under the name of Psithyrus, in the Annales de la 
Soc. Ent. de France. 
Referring to the observations which I have already made as to the 
necessity of regarding general structure, rather than parasitic economy, 
as of primary importance in the distribution of the bees, I adopt 
Latreille’s division of this subfamily into two sections; those which 
have the posterior tibiz spurred, comprising the humble bees, which 
are temporarily social ; and those which have the posterior tibiz with- 
out spurs, consisting of the hive and other honey bees, which are 
permanently social. St. Fargeau has placed the social bees in his 
section Hyménoptéres phytiphages nidifians sociaux, dividing them 
into the Perennes, consisting of the families of the ants and Apiarides ; 
the latter divisible into two tribes, 1st, Apiarites (genus Apis); and 
2d, Meliponites (genus Melipona): and the Annuels; the latter con- 
sisting of the social wasps and the humble bees, or family Bombides, 
composed of the single genus Bombus. 
The humble bees, composing the genus Bombus*, are at once known 
by their large and very hairy bodies: they are the largest species of 
the Mellifera found in England; and they are often of a black colour, 
with bands of yeilow or orange. They form societies consisting of about 
fifty or sixty individuals, occasionally, however, amounting to two or 

* Breviocr. Rerer. To tHE Bomet. 
Huber. Obsery. sur les Bourdons (Trans. Linn. Soe. vol. vi.). 
Labillardiére. Note sur les Mceurs des Bourdons, in Mém. du Mus. d’Hist. Nat. 
tom. 1. 
Dahlbom. Bombi Seandinavie Monogr. 8yo. Lund. 1832. 
Lepelletier de Suint Fargeau. Observations on ditto (Annal. Soc. Ent. de France, 
tom. i. ). 
Réaumur. Mémoires, tom. vi. mém. i. 
Latreille, in Mém. du Mus. tom. iii. 
Petit Thouars, in Nouv. Bull. des Sciences, 1814, tom. i. 
Goezen, in Der Naturforscher, St. 14. 
Drewsen et Schiodte. Bomborum Psithyrorumque Daniz enumeratio critica, 
Haynie, 1838, 8vo. 
