80 INSECTS AND 
the thorax; which again, is but a little smaller than the 
Fig. 5. 
abdomen. In the Bee, more than in 
other insects, the rings, or parts of ` 
rings remaining after the growth of ` 4 
the animal has been completed, are 
more equally developed than in the 
lower insects—no single part attains 
a monstrous development over the 
other, as in the May-fly or Dragon- 
Ephemera, M fly. The Bee, of all insects, performs 
the most bam and complex intellectual acts; in its im- 
mense colonies—a rude foreshadowing of human repub- 
lics—are portioned out to the Queen, the Worker and the 
Drone, special duties in the insect economy. How varied 
_ those duties are, how readily a Worker will perform some 
acts rarely or never before attempted, and how ready 
these insects, and their allies, the Ants, are to adapt 
themselves to new and untried circumstances, all Bee 
on and entomologists are well aware. 
Let us for a moment look more closely at the tough 
parchment-like crust of the Insect. We shall then better 
understand what has been said of its complexity. We 
rig.6* find that each ring when examined by 
Yy 5 itself, consists of an upper (tergite), and 
wy” under (sternite), and side-pieces (pleurite, 
n” $ "' consisting of the epimerum and episternum). 
sections of a circle rest on each other, giving pe 
and resistance to the whole ring- — 
