GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 
53 
drone, where they converge on the vertex, and throw the 
stemmata down upon the face. I have before alluded to 
special peculiarities in the legs when treating of those 
limbs. In the wings there are occasional differences, 
but so slight as not to require, in a general survey, spe¬ 
cial notice; but wherever they occur it is always in the 
male that the greatest extension of those limbs is found. 
The differences in the termination of the abdomen I 
have noticed above, and these sexual peculiarities in 
some genera are very marked. The spines which arm 
it in Anthidium and Osmia, and its peculiar structure in 
Chelostoma we can account for; but we have not the 
same clue to their uses in Caelioxys, in which the action 
of the abdomen is upward, and not downward, as in the 
others. 
The association of the legitimate partners of our native 
species has been to a great extent already accomplished 
and recorded; therefore, in this case, with the requisite 
guides to further instruction at hand, the commencing 
entomologist will find no obstruction, but may register 
the observations of his own experience to verify the dis¬ 
coveries of his predecessors. 
It would seem from the facts that have been recorded, 
and the close investigations made, that in some instances 
the next year’s bee is already disclosed and in the imago 
state, in the autumn of the existing year, so that it is 
ready, upon the first genial weather in the spring, to 
work its way out of its nidus, and take its part in the 
duties it has to perform. Whether this be for the eco¬ 
nomy of the food to the larva, or the saving of labour 
to the parent in gathering it, or that it would be preju¬ 
dicial for it to lie dormant in the pupa state during the 
winter is not known, hut thus in many instances it is. 
