labourers, which perform all the duties of building, the collecting and caring for the young, the function of the males being limited to the perpetuation of the species. Subsection 2. WITHOUT SPURS TO THE POSTERIOR TIBIÆ. ‡‡ _Permanently social._ Genus 27. APIS, _Linnæus_. (Plate XVI. fig. 4 ♂ ♀ ⚲.) APIS ** _e_ 1, Kirby. _Gen. Char._:—THE NEUTER.—BODY nearly cylindrical and subpubescent. HEAD transverse, about as wide as the thorax; _vertex_ and _face_ deeply longitudinally channelled in the centre, the latter to the apex of a small triangular elevated space between the insertion of the antennæ, and extending to the base of the clypeus, the sides of the face flat; the _ocelli_ rather large, seated far back upon the vertex in a triangle, the anterior one in the depth of the longitudinal channel, the two lateral ones placed further back towards the occiput in a transverse indentation crossing the longitudinal one; _compound eyes_ very pubescent; the _hexagonal facets_ very minute; _antennæ_ short, filiform, geniculated; the _scape_ nearly half the length of the flagellum and subfusiform, the basal joint of the flagellum globose, the second subclavate and subequal with the remainder, very slightly lengthening to the apical joint, which is compressed and as short as the second; _clypeus_ quadrate, convex; _labrum_ transverse, linear, slightly waved in front; _mandibles_ broad at the apex, edentate, obliquely truncated and concavo-convex; _cibarial apparatus_ shortish; _tongue_ nearly twice the length of the labium, linear, pubescent, and terminating in a small knob; _paraglossæ_ obsolete, coadunate with the base of the tongue; _labial palpi_ not quite so long as the tongue, the first joint four times as long as the remainder, and tapering from the base to the apex of the second joint, which is about one-fourth the length of the preceding, and has the two very short terminal joints articulated just before its acute apex; _maxillæ_ broad, hastate; _labium_ half the length of the tongue, its inosculation straightly transverse, not so long as the tongue and acuminate; the _maxillary palpi_ extremely short, the basal one the shortest. THORAX subglobose; _prothorax_ inconspicuous; _scutellum_ lunulate and impending over the post-scutellum, which is transverse and linear; _metathorax_ truncated; _wings_ with a long marginal cell extending nearly to the end of the wing, and obtuse at its extremity, three submarginal cells which terminate at less than half the length of the marginal, the second the largest and receiving the first recurrent nervure towards its commencement, the third oblique and narrow and receiving the second recurrent nervure just beyond its centre; _legs_ slender, subpilose; the anterior and intermediate _tibiæ_ with a spur, their _plantæ_ with a dense short close brush all round, the _posterior tibiæ_ triangular,