glabrous within, externally smooth, shining, and irregularly concave, the edges fringed longitudinally with long hair curving inwards, and forming the sides of the corbiculum, or basket, which conveys the _matériel_ of the nest, the apex transverse and pectinated with short rigid setæ, but wholly without spurs; the _plantæ_ oblong, not quite so long as the tibiæ, the sides nearly parallel, the upper edge fringed with long loose hair, subglabrous externally, but furnished internally with ten transverse, parallel rows of short stiff golden hair, with an auricle at the outer angle, forming collectively a dense brush, and its oblique apex pectinated with short stiff setæ, the remainder of the tarsal joints short, the fourth the shortest, and the claw-joint the longest; the _claws_ short, robust, and bifid. ABDOMEN retuse at the base, subcylindrical, convex above, and terminating conically, the first segment very short, the second the longest, the ventral segments ridged longitudinally in the centre. The FEMALE, or QUEEN differs in the head not being quite so wide as the thorax, in having the _cibarial apparatus_ very much shorter; the _mandibles_ distinctly bidentate, the inner edge of the inner tooth stretching obliquely to the acute inner extremity of the broad apex of the organ; the _labial palpi_ as long as the tongue, with all the joints conterminous, the basal one slightly acuminate, the second linear, the two terminal ones more slender and shorter, the pubescence of the eyes very much longer than in the neuter; the _legs_ more robust and less pilose; the _posterior tibiæ_ convex externally, without the lateral fringes of hair, and their plantæ merely oblong, without the external basal auricle. The ABDOMEN is also considerably relatively longer; and has not the central ventral ridge.