PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



107 



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 



body being thick, short, and clumsy, and very obtuse at each extremity. * It is 

 covered also, as to the head and trunk, with dense hairs. 



The head is depressed and orbicular. The tongue is shorter and more slender 

 than that of the female ; and the mandibles, though nearly of the same shape, are 

 smaller. The eyes are very large, meeting at the back part of the head. In the 

 space between them are placed the antennae and stemmata. The former consist of 

 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 tibiae are long, club-shaped, and covered with incon- 

 spicuous hairs. The posterior plantoe 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 maxillae are long and 

 incurved ; the labrum. and antennce black. 



In the trunk the tegulae 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 tibiae, are naked above, exteriorly longitudinally 

 concave, and interiorly longitudinally convex ; furnished with lateral and recum- 

 bent hairs to form the corbicula, and armed at the end with the pecten. The 

 upper surface of the posterior plantoe resembles that of the tibiae ; underneath they 

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

 are armed with stiff bristles, and exteriorly Avith an acute appendage or auricle. 



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

 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 spicida, is straight. 



i See Vol. I. p. 414. 



* Virgil seems to have regarded the drone as one of the sorts of kings or 

 leaders of the bees, when he says, speaking of the latter, 



" Ille horridus alter 



Desidia, latamque trahens inglorius alvum." 



Georgic. iv. 1. 93. 



