These aculeates divide into, first, the _fossorial Hymenoptera_, or burrowers; and the equivalent branch the _Diploptera_, or wasps, distinguished and named from their folding the superior wings longitudinally in repose; secondly, the _heterogeneous Hymenoptera_, or ants, named from the dissimilarity either in size or structure of their females, a peculiarity incidental to all the social Hymenoptera, but living in community is more peculiarly characteristic of this division, it being in the other divisions restricted to a few genera only, whereas here the solitary habit is the exceptional. In all cases of socialism there are three classes of individuals,—males, females, and abortive females. In the other social kinds of Hymenoptera, these abortive females, called neuters, perform the labours of the community, and they are always winged; whereas amongst the ants they are never winged, and they constitute civil and military departments, the former attending to domestic matters, and the latter making predatory excursions to enslave the inhabitants of other communities, to aid their civilians in their many duties. The third and last division of the aculeate Hymenoptera contains the _Mellicolligeræ_, the bees, or honey-gatherers. Thus each division of the aculeated Hymenoptera is closely linked to the others by the strong affinity of the social habits of some of the genera of their several families. The food of these three divisions of the aculeated Hymenoptera differs considerably, the Fossores being raptorial flesh-feeders, which hunt down and destroy their prey, and supply it as food to their young; the _Heterogynæ_ are omnivorous,—grain, fruits, or carrion being equally welcome to them; but in these climates I am not aware that they destroy life, although their wide migrations within the tropics are undertaken in the very spirit of the Huns and Vandals, for they devastate everything they come across; but the whole family of bees are exclusively honey-feeders without any carnivorous propensities, and use their stings merely as weapons of defence. Although all the social aculeates are edifiers, and although the wasp in its _papier mâché_ domicile may vie with the honey-bee in capacity and skill in the structure of the hexagons of the habitation it erects or suspends, which are as perfect, and almost as delicate, although fabricated of a coarser material than those within the hive, and wherein also the several compartments form a more homogeneous unity, and the uniformity of the several layers or floors is more in accordance with architectural symmetry,—yet must the palm of precedence be accorded to the bee, from the more elaborate and perfect development of the social instinctive faculty.