PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 359 



There are two descriptions of males one not bigger than the workers, 

 supposed to be produced from a male egg laid in a worker's cell. The 

 common males are much larger, and will counterpoise two workers. 



I have before observed to you that there are two sorts of workers, the 

 wax-makers and nurses. 1 They may also be further divided into fertile 

 and sterile 2 : 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 

 having less 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 dissection, were discovered in these bees, though 

 not furnished with eggs. This discovery induced Mile. Jurine, the lady 

 who dissected them, to examine the common workers in the same way ; 

 and she found in all that she examined, what had escaped Swammerdam, 

 perfect though sterile ovaries. 3 It is worth inquiry, though M. Huber 

 gives no hint of this kind, whether these were not in fact superannuated 

 bees, that could no longer take part in the labours of the hive. Thorley 

 remarks, which confirms this idea, that if you closely observe a hive of 

 bees in July, you may perceive many amongst them of a dark colour, with 



fourteen joints, including the radicle, the fourth and fifth being very short, and not 

 easily distinguished. 



The trunk is large. The wings are longer than the body. The legs are short and 

 slender. The posterior tibice are long, club-shaped, and coverea with inconspicuous 

 hairs. The posterior plantcc are furnished underneath with thick-set scopulce, which 

 they use to brush their bodies. 



The claw joints are fulvescent. 



The abdomen is cordate, very short, being scarcely so long as the head and trunk 

 together, consisting of seven segments, which are fulvous at their apex. The first 

 segment is longer than any of the succeeding ones, and covered above with rather 

 long hairs. The second and third dorsal segments are apparently naked; but, 

 under a triple lens, in a certain light, some adpressed hairs may be perceived ; the 

 remaining ones are hairy, the three last being inflexed. The ventral segments are 

 very narrow, hairy, and fulvous. 



iii. The body of the Workers is oblong. 



The head triangular. The mandibles are prominent, so as to terminate the head 

 in an angle, toothless, and forcipate. The tongue and maxillce are long and incurved ; 

 the labrum and antennae black. 



In the trunk the tegulce are black. The wings extend only to the apex of the 

 fourth segment of the abdomen. The legs are all black, with the digits only rather 

 piceous. The posterior tibice are naked above, exteriorly longitudinally concave, 

 and interiorly longitudinally convex ; furnished with lateral and recumbent hairs 

 to form the corbicula, and armed at the end with the pecten. The upper surface of 

 the posterior ptantce resembles that of the tibia;; underneath they are furnished with 

 a scapula or brush of stiff hairs set in rows : at the base they are armed with stiff 

 bristles, and exteriorly with an acute appendage or auricle. 



The abdomen is a little longer than the head and trunk together ; oblong, ana 

 rather heart-shaped: a transverse section of it is triangular. It is covered with 

 longish, flavo-pallid hairs : the first segment is short with longer hairs ; the base 

 of the three intermediate segments is covered, and as it were banded, with pale 

 hairs. The apex of the three intermediate ventral segments is rather fulvescent, 

 and their base is distinguished on each side by a trapeziform wax pocket covered by 

 a thin membrane. The sting or rather vagina of the spicula, is straight. 



i See p. 275. 



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

 tinue to make only male cells, though supplied with a fertile queen, and the 

 fertile workers lay eggs in them. Schirach, 258. 



* Huber, ii. 425. 



A A 4 



