30S STATES OF INSECTS. 



iii. With regard to the general shape of their body, 

 the male and female usually resemble each other : but 

 there are some exceptions to this rule. The male of the 

 hive-bee is much thicker and more clumsy than either 

 the female or the worker ; but in Halktus Latr. the males 

 are nearly cylindrical in shape, and very narrow ; while 

 the other sex are oblong or ovate, especially their abdo- 

 men : and in Andrena Latr. the former are much slen- 

 derer than the females, and of a more lanceolate shape. 

 But a still more striking difference in this respect be- 

 tween the sexes is exhibited by some species of the genus 

 Ptinus F., in which the male is long and slender, and the 

 female short and thick. This, in more than one instance, 

 has occasioned them to be mistaken for distinct insects : 

 thus, P. Lickenwn and P. similis, P. ovatus and P. tes- 

 taceus, of Mr. Marsham, are mere sexual varieties. But 

 the most entire abalienation of shape at present known, 

 is that which distinguishes the male from the female 

 Coccus ; these are so completely dissimilar as scarcely to 

 have any part in common. In Bombyx vestita F., and 

 others of the same family, while the males are of the or- 

 dinary conformation of the order, the females are without 

 even the slightest rudiments of wings ; they have no an- 

 tennae, the legs are extremely short, not longer than 

 those of the caterpillar ; and the body is entirely desti- 

 tute of scales, so that they altogether assume the exact 

 appearance of hexapod larvae a . A conformation nearly 

 similar takes place in the female of Tinea Lichenella ; but 

 in this the feet are longer, and the anus is furnished with 

 a long retractile ovipositor b . 



a Scheven Naturfors. stk. xx. 65. t. n.f. 4. Compare Ibid. x. 101. 

 b Reaum. iii. t. xv.f. IS, 19, 



