96 MALES AND FEMALES 



of the body exposed to view, and the female 

 only six. In the males of some of those bees 

 which collect pollen on the underside of the 

 body, the body above terminates with the sixth 

 segment. This is because the seventh is turned 

 over on to the underside, and faces downwards, 

 its apex pointing towards the head. This 

 arrangement of course leaves less room for 

 the regular ventral segments, and the usual 

 apical segments are in consequence " telescoped " 

 up under the fourth, so that the apical opening of 

 the body lies on its underside between the fourth 

 ventral and the inverted seventh dorsal segments. 

 This very curious structure occurs only in those 

 bees whose females collect pollen on the underside, 

 and the reason of it is to me quite inexplicable. 

 The females of a few of the fossors are destitute of 

 wings ; but in this country we have no wingless 

 males, except in the case of one little ant (Formi- 

 coxenus) ; this lives in the nest of the common large 

 red ant, and its male can hardly be known from 

 the worker except by the number of joints in 

 the antennae and the absence of a sting. In 

 the cases where the female is wingless, the male 

 as a rule is much the larger of the two sexes. 



