Our own species occur throughout France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland,

Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, and one of them has also been sent from

Oran. The genus is small, and may have been overlooked in other

countries, although its appearance is sufficiently distinct and marked

to have caught the eye. It is as lithe and active as a Malay, as black

as a negro, and as hairy as a gorilla, looking like a little ursine

sweep.

The genus EUCERA, of which we have but one representative, although

considerably more than fifty species are known, has not so wide a range

as might be expected from their numbers. Our own is found throughout

Europe and in Algeria. Other species occur in Russia, the Morea,

Albania, Dalmatia, and Egypt. In Asia some are found in Syria, and at

Bagdad; and from the New World they have been sent from Cayenne and the

United States.

The genus ANTHOPHORA, to which the genus _Saropoda_ is very closely

allied,—so closely, indeed, that by the celebrated hymenopterologist Le

Pelletier de St. Fargeau the species of both are incorporated

together,—has, even as now restricted, a world-wide dissemination, and

numbers nearly a hundred and fifty species. Several of our own occur

throughout France and Italy and the whole of northern Europe, and even

among the Esquimaux in the arctic regions, showing that a bridal bouquet

may be gathered even there; for where bees are flowers must abound.

The genus in other species shows itself in the south of Europe, viz. in

Spain, Sicily, the Morea, and Dalmatia; by way of Syria and Arabia Felix

it passes down to Egypt and occurs in Nubia and also in Algeria. It dots

the western coast of Africa at Senegal and Guinea, and has been

discovered in the Canaries, and again makes its appearance at the Cape

of Good Hope, rounding it to Natal. It travels round the peninsula of

India, being found at Bombay, in Bengal, and in the island of Ceylon,

and passes onward by way of Hongkong to northern China, where, dipping

to the Philippines, it next occurs in Australia. In the New World it is

found on its western side at Chili, and traverses that continent to

Paraguay and Pará, and has been sent from the West India Islands of

Cuba, St. Domingo, and Guadaloupe. From Mexico, where we next find it,

it passes to Indiana, and occurs throughout the United States, and thus

completes its progress round the world. About one hundred and thirty are

known.

The genus SAROPODA is closely allied to _Anthophora_, as closely as

_Heriades_ is to _Chelostoma_, and is very limited in numbers, ten only

being known, and but one of which is native with us. The genus occurs

throughout France and Germany, and has been sent from Russia, Egypt,

South Africa, and Australia, thus having a very wide range

notwithstanding the paucity of its species.

The very pretty genus CERATINA, although numbering but few

species,—fewer than thirty,—and although not found in Australasia, is

widely scattered throughout the Old and the New Worlds. Our own species

inhabits as far north as Russia. Other species occur throughout France,

and in the south of Europe, and show themselves in the Morea, and in

Albania. North, South, and Western Africa possess the genus, it being

found in Algeria and at the Cape of Good Hope, and in the intervening

district of Senegal. It has been brought from Ceylon and Bengal, and

also from the north of India. It reaches China by way of Java and

Hongkong: and in the New World has been found in the Brazils and

Cayenne, in the Southern, and throughout the United States in the

Northern continent.

The genus NOMADA is the first of the genuine parasitical bees, and about

the habits of which no doubt can be entertained; certainly not the same

as attaches both to _Hylæus_ and _Sphecodes_, among the _Andrenidæ_. The

parasitical habits of Nomada are evident and unmistakable. This is the

handsomest genus, in variety of colour and elegance of form, of all our

native bees, but the species are never conspicuous for size. They have

much of the appearance of wasps, and are often mistaken for them even by

entomologists, who have not paid attention to bees. Many of our native

species seem limited to our own islands: others of our species occur in

France and Germany, and through Denmark in direct line to Lapland,

turning down into Russia, and have been caught as far south as Albania.

One of our species, or so like as to want distinguishing

characteristics, is found in Canada. Did ours migrate there? and how?

The genus is of wide distribution, but occurs only north of the Equator,

where it spreads from Portugal to the Philippine Islands. It is found in

Siberia and Northern China, whence through the Philippines it passes to

Tranquebar, then up to Northern India, and thence by Bagdad to the Morea

and Albania, and dips down to Northern Africa at Tunis, and on to Oran

and Tangiers, and completes its circuit in Portugal. It is doubtless

parasitical upon many more genera and species than we find it infest in

this country, although all that the several species pair off with here

are not fully designated, especially among the _Andrenæ_, and smaller

_Halicti_. The number of species, British and foreign, known to

collectors approximate to a hundred.

The genus MELECTA is another handsome parasitical insect. This is always

a dark beauty, and is very limited in species, for, as far as they may

be estimated from the contents of collections, its numbers do not reach

twenty. Our own species occur throughout the whole of Europe, north and

south. Others are found in Sicily, Albania, the Morea, and show

themselves at Bagdad. The genus has been sent from the Canaries, and

crosses the tropics into Chili, but does not seem to have occurred

elsewhere in either North or South America, although one of the genera

(_Eucera_) on which, with us, it is parasitical, is found in the latter

country, and the other genus (_Anthophora_), which it also infests, is

found throughout the world, excepting in Australasia. In all those

countries, the closely-allied exotic genus _Crocisa_, which is very

numerous in species, may supply its place.

The elegant genus EPEOLUS occurs in our own species throughout northern

Europe, as high as Lapland, and is found also at the southern extremity

of the continent of the Old World, at the Cape of Good Hope. It has been

brought from Sicily, and other species come from Siberia. The genus in

America passes down from the United States, by way of Mexico, to the

Brazils, where it crosses the southern continent, having been

transmitted from Chili. It is very limited in the number of its species,

considering its wide diffusion, for not more than twenty are registered.

It is almost identical in distribution with the genus _Colletes_, upon

which it is with us parasitical. The species are never so large as those

of the preceding genus, _Melecta_.

The genus STELIS is limited both in number of species and distribution,

although the spots whence it has come are wide apart. Our own species

are found throughout France and northern Europe, as far as Finland.

Other species occur in North America, and the Brazils, but the whole

number yet described is under ten.

The remarkable form in both sexes of the genus CÆLIOXYS occurs in

identity with our own species throughout France and Austria, and spreads

north to Finland and Russia, and through all the intervening countries.

It is singular that it should not be recorded from southern or

south-western Europe, as it is found in Oran. Other species of the genus

have been found in northern Africa, Egypt, and Algeria. On the western

coast of Africa it has been caught on the Gambia, at Sierra Leone, and

on the coast of Guinea. It doubles the Cape of Good Hope, where it is

found extending its range to Port Natal. From Asia we have it from

Turkey, and again from India. It has been sent from the hither side of

South America, from the Brazils, and separately from Pará, and occurs at

Cayenne, and in the West India Islands, Cuba, and St. Thomas’s, and

extends as high in North America, through the United States, as Canada.

It is quite probable that it has as wide a range as the bees upon which

it is parasitical (_Megachile_), although it has not yet come from such

extensively-spread localities. More than fifty species are known, but

some of our own have not yet been enumerated amongst those found

elsewhere.

The genus MEGACHILE, which embraces the most renowned of the mechanical

bees, is extremely cosmopolitan, spreading north and south, east and

west; and is also very abundant in the numbers of its species, the

census extending to not far short of two hundred. Some one, or several

of our species, although other species are limited to our own

country,—spread through Italy and France, and all the countries of

northern Europe to the high latitude of Lapland, which is higher than

where even one of ours (viz. the _M. centuncularis_) is again found,

which occurs in Canada and at Hudson’s Bay. The genus also frequents

southern Europe, in Spain, Sicily, and Albania, and in the East, in the

Caucasus and Dalmatia. It traverses Turkey by Bagdad to India, having

been captured in Nepaul, and it descends southward in the Indian

peninsula, where it has been found at Bombay. From India it stretches to

the Mauritius, thence across the Indian Ocean to Java, and thence to

Hongkong and northern China. It then dips to the Philippines, and

doubtless through the islands of the Indian Archipelago to Australasia,

from which continent none are registered from its northern and eastern

settlements, but species abound along its southern edge from Western

Australia, through Adelaide to Tasmania. The genus has been brought from

the West India islands, St. Thomas’s, St. Croix, and Cuba: it is found

upon the main from Mexico, descending to the Brazils. It skirts all the

coasts of Africa, being discovered in Egypt and Algeria, along the

western coast by the Gambia, Senegal and Sierra Leone to Guinea, and the

island of Fernando Po, and then again occurs at the Cape of Good Hope.

Ascending the eastern coast by Natal, it stretches to Abyssinia. The

species are very abundant in India, Africa, and Australasia.

The genus ANTHIDIUM, although very numerous in species, and differing

more remarkably in form amongst themselves than most other genera, has a

far less extensive range, no species having been found in Australasia or

India, although it occurs in Arabia, Syria, and Mesopotamia. Our own

solitary species occurs in France, Italy, and the whole of northern

Europe, extending to Finland. In southern Europe the genus inhabits

Sicily, Spain, the Morea, Albania, and Dalmatia, and is also very

abundant in Southern Russia. In Africa it is found in Nubia and Algeria,

and on its north-western edge in Barbary, whence it descends by the

Gambia and Sierra Leone to the Cape of Good Hope, and thence reaches to

Natal. It is then found in Chili, and crossing the South American

continent occurs in the Brazils, whence it ascends to Cayenne, and, by

way of Mexico, to the United States. The number of species recorded

exceed a hundred.

The remarkable genus CHELOSTOMA is very limited in the numbers of its

species, of which less than a dozen are known; as also in the extent of

their distribution. Our own are found throughout northern Europe, as far

as Lapland, and in Russia. In southern Europe they occur in the Morea,

and the genus has been discovered in Georgia in North America.

The closely-allied genus HERIADES seems limited to a European

habitation, and occurs only in our own solitary species, but it ranges,

like the preceding, to the high latitudes of Lapland.

ANTHOCOPA seems limited to our own country and France, possibly only

from its having been associated from similarity of general habit with

the genus _Osmia_. Only one species appears to be known, but this has a

world-wide celebrity, from the interesting account given by Réaumur, of

its hanging its abode with symmetrical cuttings from the petals of the

poppy.

The genus OSMIA, although not including such able artisans as

_Megachile_, still has in its species very constructive propensities.

Indeed, all the bees which convey the pollen on the under side of the

abdomen, are more or less builders or upholsterers. The genus has a wide

range, and is tolerably numerous, numbering more than fifty species.

Some of our own occur throughout Europe, and, like the two preceding

genera, are found in the highest continental latitudes. Some of ours

also occur in Algeria and the Canaries, other species in Albania and

Moravia. In Africa they are found in Egypt, Barbary, and Port Natal, and

in the New World from Florida, in the United States, through Nova Scotia

to Hudson’s Bay.

The genus APATHUS, which is parasitical upon _Bombus_, and to the

uninitiated has all the appearance of this genus, seems to be the only

instance of a parasitical genus of bees so closely resembling the

_οἶτος_, (as we may, perhaps, for the sake of avoiding a periphrasis, be

allowed to call the bee upon which the parasite is found,) as to be so

easily liable to be mistaken for it, and which was indeed the case by

even such a sagacious entomologist as the distinguished Latreille; but

Kirby had already noticed the difference, suggesting its separation from

_Bombus_, until about the time that St. Fargeau was induced to propose a

distribution of the Hymenoptera, based generally upon economy and

habits, to which he had been led by a refining investigation of

structure, that the distinguishing difference was appreciated, and used

generically, by Mr. Newman. This difference, like many other simple

facts, now that it has been found, is very obvious. It consists in the

genus having no neuters, and the female of the species no polliniferous

organs, but the determination of the legitimate males, by means other

than empirical, is still difficult. In our own species this genus ranges

throughout northern Europe, as high as Lapland; a cause for which we

shall discover when we trace the geography of the next genus, _Bombus_.

One species different from any of ours occurs in the Brazils, and others

are found in the Polish Ukraine, and in the United States of North

America. The genus appears extremely limited in numbers, for although

nearly a hundred of the genus _Bombus_ are known, _Apathus_, in

collections, seems limited to ten. This may perhaps arise from want of

due observation or from the neglect of their careful separation from

that genus, but our own species are far from co-extensive with our

native species of _Bombus_.

The genus BOMBUS, although with some southern irrepressible

propensities, it being found within the tropics in a few instances, is

essentially a northern form, which is strongly indicated in its downy

habiliments, for it is clothed in fur like the Czar in his costly

blue-fox mantle. In the Old World its range extends to Lapland, whither

it is followed, as previously noticed, by its parasite _Apathus_, and in

the New World to Greenland, where one species seems an autochthon,

perhaps originating there when the land was still verdant, and grew

grapes, long before the age of Madoc. Other species occur far away to

the north of east, booming through the desolate wilds of Kamtchatka,

having been found at Sitka; and their cheerful hum is heard within the

Arctic circle, as high as Boothia Felix, thus more northerly than the

seventieth parallel. They may, perhaps, with their music often convey to

the broken-hearted and lonely exile in Siberia, the momentarily cheering

reminiscence of joyful youth, and by this bright and brief interruption

break the monotonous and painful dullness of his existence, recalling

the happier days of yore: but the flowers of humanity, here typified by

the natural flowers which attract these stray comforters, will one day

spring where the salt of tears now desolates, and thus the merry bees

have sweetness for even these poor outcasts, and froth their bitter cup

with bubbling hope.

In the south of Europe the genus occurs in Austria, the island of Zante,

and the Pyrenees. It is found in Syria, the island of Java, in China at

Chusan and Silhet, and also in northern India; and, although crossing

the tropics to fix itself at Monte Video, at the mouth of Rio de la

Plata, in Africa it appears to be found at Oran only; nor does it occur

in Australasia. In South America it is also found at Pará and Cayenne,

and on the opposite side at Columbia, Quito, and Chili, and passes up

the isthmus to California, and thence to Mexico, whence it extends to

the island of Antigua.

-------

The genus APIS, or the HIVE BEE,—which perhaps in its past and present

utility to man, may successfully compete in the aggregate with the

silkworm,—with true regal dignity comes the last of the series of

genera. The whole array of her precursors, who marshal her way, and

derive their significance and importance from the more or less direct

resemblance in structure and function to her, deduce their common name

of “Bees” from this relationship, and consequently from her. Long before

their existence had been traced by the observer of nature or by the

naturalist, the comb of the BEE had dropped in exuberant luxuriance its

golden stores for the gratification of mankind. This little creature had

garnered, from sources inaccessible to man, the luscious nectar

concealed within the bosom of the flower, whose exquisitely beautiful

varieties, in form, colour, and fragrance, had delighted his sight and

his smell long before he had been led by accident to discover that these

industrious little workers collected into their treasury, from those

same flowers, as exquisite a luxury for his taste, as they themselves

had yielded to his other senses. Thus the earliest records speak of

honey, and of bees, and of wax; and the land of promise to the restored

Israelites, was to be a land flowing with milk and honey.

Réaumur, whose observations upon bees had been pursued with such patient

and indefatigable perseverance, combined with such minute accuracy, and

then recorded so agreeably, and who conceived the possibility of

establishing a standard of length, for the common use of all nations, to

be derived from the length of a certain number of the honey-cells of the

comb, to which notion he was doubtless led by their mathematical

precision and uniform exactitude, appears to have been unaware of the

existence of other species of the genus, and hence he assumed, in his

ignorance of this fact, that in all countries they were alike.

Travellers had, even for more than a century before, mentioned different

kinds of honey, derived from different kinds of bees, which, however,

Réaumur does not, from this circumstance, seem to have known. Had he

been acquainted with it, his philosophical accuracy of observation and

habit of reflection would certainly have assumed the possibility of

differences of size in the cells of the different bees, and he would

have waited until opportunity had given him the power of determining

whether this mode of admeasurement could be safely adopted as certainly

being of universal prevalence. It is to be wondered at also, that he did

not weigh the possibility that climatic differences in the distribution

of even the _Apis_ _mellifica_ might have involved discrepancies, by the

effects constantly seen to be produced by climate, and which would have

shown that the standard which he sought to establish could not be relied

on.

Collections exhibit about sixteen species of the genus _Apis_, whose

natural occurrence is restricted to the Old World, for although the

genus, especially in the species _A. mellifica_, has been naturalized in

America, and also in Australasia, and in some of the Islands of the

Pacific, these were originally conveyed thither by Europeans. Those

countries possess representatives of the genus with analogous attributes

and functions, in two other genera, which fulfil the same uses. It is

remarkable that the Red Indians used to note the gradual absorption of

their territory by the White Man, through the forward advance of his

herald _Apis mellifica_. This species has also been carried to India, to

the Isle of Timor, and to northern, western, and southern Africa, in all

which countries it is thoroughly naturalized, although they all possess

indigenous species, which are quite as, or perhaps more largely,

tributary to their inhabitants. Observation has not hitherto confirmed

the identity of the manners of these exotic species with our own, owing

to the deficiency of observers with the enthusiasm requisite to follow

their peculiarities with the patience of a Réaumur, a Bonnet, or a

Huber. That they are quite or all but similar, exclusively of

differences of size, both in their habits and their nests, may be

inferred from their identity of structure. We know that they consist of

three kinds of individuals—neuters, females, and males,—and that their

combs are made in cakes built vertically, formed of hexagonal contiguous

cells, which are placed bottom to bottom, and overlap each other in the

same strengthening position as do ours; and also that the cells wherein

the males are developed are oval, larger than the honey-cells, and less

uniform. With all these similitudes it is fair to suppose that their

economy may be the same; but their honey-cells, from their smaller size,

(the bee which produces them being smaller,) have a more elegant

appearance; and it is concluded from the largeness of the nest, taken

conjunctively with the smallness of the cells, and of the bees

constructing it, that the communities thus associated must in their

collective number be considerably larger than those of our hives.

Instinct, as expressed in the habits, is as sure a line of separation,

or means of combination, as structure, and is corroborative in tending

to preserve generic conjunction in its inviolability. And, conversely,

with certainty, is indicated that such-and-such a form, in the broad and

most distinguishing features of its economy, is essentially the same in

every climate. The habits, therefore, in whatever country the genus may

occur, may be as surely affirmed of the species, from the knowledge we

have of those at home, as if observation had industriously tracked them.

This is especially the case in a genus, the species of which present

such a peculiar identity of _structure_ as does _Apis_, whose specific

differences are derived only from colour and size, and this identity is

a peculiarity, so far as I have observed, rarely found in other genera,

numbering even no more species, but wherein slight differences of

structure often yield a subsidiary specific character, complete

structural identity being almost solely incidental to the genus _Apis_.

The importance of honey and wax throughout the world, as well for the

ceremonies of religion, as for the service of the arts, and for medical

or domestic purposes, is attested by the vigilance, care, and assiduity

with which bees are tended in every country. Although sugar, since its

introduction to those northern countries which have not been favoured by

nature with the cane that yields it, has superseded for ordinary uses

the produce of the hive, this still continues serviceable for many

purposes to which sugar cannot be applied. It is used in many ways in

pharmacy, and still retains in the interior of some continents, owing to

the deficiency of sugar, arising from the difficulties and expenses of

transit, all its primitive uses. In the East, even in countries

producing sugar in abundance, honey is extensively employed for the

preservation of fruits, which in their ripe state in those hot climates

would rapidly lose their fulness of flavour were they not thus

protected,—honey here being esteemed superior to sugar in the

circumstance of its not crystallizing by reason of the heat, and also

from its applicability to this use in its natural state.

This is especially the case in China, where a conserve of green ginger,

and of a fragrant orange (the _Cum Quat_), are in high repute, and which

are peculiarly grateful to Europeans on the spot. These, however, are so

delicately susceptible of change of climate, that they lose some of the

aroma that constitutes much of their attraction, upon transportation,

and, indeed, like many kinds of Southern wines, can be appreciated only

within their own country, from their extreme delicacy and tendency to

spoil.

Honey is a very favourite food and medicine with the Bedouins in

Northern Arabia. Bees make their hives in all the crevices of rocks in

Hedscha, finding everywhere aromatic plants and flowers. At Taif, bees

yield most excellent honey, and the honey at Mecca is exquisite. At

Veit-el-Fakeh, wax from the mountainous country of Yemen is exchanged

for European goods and for spices from the further Indies. In Syria and

Palestine we find bees abound. At Ladakiah there are large exports both

of honey and wax; and the honey of Ainnete, on the declivities of the

Lebanon, is considered the finest of the whole of that mountain-range.

Antonine the Martyr, in the seventh century, speaks of the honey of

Nazareth being most excellent, and in the present day bees are

extensively cultivated at Bethlehem, for the sake of the profit derived

from the wax tapers supplied to the pilgrims. Some of the members of the

German colony at Wadi Urtas speak of the purchase of eleven beehives at

this place, and express themselves as very sanguine of an abundant

harvest from the luxuriance and profusion of flowers, although they say

the bees are smaller than those of Westphalia, and are of a

yellowish-brown colour. The eastern side of this peninsula, especially

the district of Oman, is wholly destitute of bees, contrasting thus

unfavourably with its western fertility.

The enormous quantities of honey produced may be comparatively estimated

by the collateral production of beeswax, which it exceeds by at least

ten to one. When we reflect upon what masses of the latter are consumed

in the rites of the Roman Catholic and Greek churches throughout the

many and large countries where those religions prevail, we shall be able

to form a general estimate of the extensiveness and universality of the

cultivation of bees. Nor are those the only uses to which wax is

applied, and the collective computation of its consumption will show

that bees abound in numbers almost transcending belief.

The name of _bougie_ for wax-candle or taper, is used by all the

languages of the south of Europe, and is derived from the name of Bugia,

a town of Northern Africa, whence, even as long back as the time of the

Roman Empire, wax was obtained to make candles for lighting. The

inhabitants of Trebizonde paid their tribute to the Roman Empire in wax.

Both honey and wax are largely employed in pharmacy, and were also, in

ancient times, both extensively used in embalming. The honey of Mount

Hymetta in Attica, and of Hybla in Sicily, were each in as high repute

in classical countries as is that of Narbonne in Languedoc, by reason of

its choice delicacy, with us, and throughout France. Distributed over

the wide pastures of the Ukraine, every peasant has his store of hives,

which frequently, in their harvests, realize more largely than their

crops of grain,—multitudes of that peasantry computing as important

items in the estimate of their wealth the number of their beehives,

which often exceed five hundred to the individual possessor. In Spain

and Italy bees are largely cultivated; and in the former country many a

poor parish priest, the religious monitor of an obscure hamlet, can

count his five thousand.

In countries so rich in the productions of Flora, whose seasons there

are perennial, and which fluctuate only in special locality, bees are

removed to and fro to meet these peculiarities. Thus in the south of

France, where large tracts are cultivated with aromatic shrubs and

flowers, for the distillation of essential oils and fragrant waters, the

hives of bees are moved up and down the adjacent rivers upon rafts, as

the flowering of the crops succeed each other. In Italy, Spain, and

Southern Russia, the same practices are pursued, although we have no

detailed accounts of the precise spots; but we know from Niebuhr,

Savigny, and Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, that upon the Nile it is customary

thus to transport the bees from flower-region to flower-region upon

rafts containing about four thousand hives, each numbered by the

proprietors of the hives for identification, who thus double the seasons

by continually shifting their bees from Lower Egypt to the Upper Nile

and back again.

In ancient Greece also, they were conveyed for this purpose from Achaia

to Attica; in the former of these provinces, owing to its higher

temperature, flowers had passed their bloom before spring had opened in

the latter. All these circumstances tend to show that the experience of

bee-masters, both ancient and modern, has ascertained that their insects

have not a very extensive range of flight.

Of the fact that the honey of bees is not always salutary to man, there

is a remarkable instance recorded in Xenophon, in his narrative of the

retreat of “The Ten Thousand,” who reports that upon falling in with

quantities of it, in Asia Minor, those who indulged in its enjoyment

were seized with vertigo, or headache, and violent diarrhœa, attended

with sickness, but which had no fatal consequences, although they did

not recover from its injurious effects for a couple of days, and were

left then in a very prostrated condition. The celebrated physician and

botanist Tournefort, when travelling in the East, towards the end of the

seventeenth century, found, in the neighbourhood of Trebizonde, an

excessive luxuriance of the flowers of the _Rhododendron ponticum_ and

of the _Azalea pontica_, which, although sumptuous in their blossoms,

were held in bad repute by the inhabitants, who ascribed to their odour

the deleterious effect of causing headache and vertigo. He was thence

induced to surmise that these had possibly been the flowers the bees had

extracted the honey from which had been so baneful to the troops of

Xenophon.

But it seems that bees themselves cannot collect with impunity the honey

of noxious flowers, for they are occasionally subject to a disease

resembling vertigo, from which they do not recover, and which is

attributed to the poisonous nature of the flowers they have been

recently visiting.

Several different kinds of honey and wax have been described, but some

degree of uncertainty exists as to whether they are all the produce of

genuine species of the genus _Apis_; for it will be found, in a rapid

notice I purpose giving of the more conspicuous genera of foreign bees,

that there are two exotic genera of this section of the family, both

social in their habits, and which both produce the same materials; there

is a wasp also that makes honey. But of all the many kinds of honey

noticed, the green kind furnished to Western India by the island of

Réunion, the produce of an _Apis_ indigenous to Madagascar, but which

has been naturalized in the French island, and also in the Mauritius, is

perhaps the most remarkable. It is of a thick syrupy consistency, and

has a peculiar aroma. It is much esteemed upon the most proximate coasts

of the peninsula of India, where it bears a high price. Whether its

greenness of colour is derived from the flowers which this species

frequents, or whether it be incidental to the nature of the bee, has not

been ascertained, but the honey of the South American wasp, the sole

species producing the material, has also a green tinge.

Nature has assigned the task of thus catering for man, by collecting and

garnering from the recondite crypts within the blossoms of flowers, to

about sixteen species congenerical with our honey-bee, but sufficiently

differing. As I have before noticed, the species of this genus greatly

more resemble each other in structure than perhaps do the species

collocated within any other genus of insects, and whence may be inferred

an exact similitude of habits, although as yet unconfirmed by direct

observation.

The second European species, the _Apis Ligustica_, or Ligurian bee, is

rather larger, but very like ours, and inhabits the whole of the north

of Italy, its occupation of that country extending from Genoa to the

vicinity of Trieste; its progress further north being impeded by the

Alps of Switzerland and the Tyrol. It is also found in Naples, and may

likewise spread to the Morea, Turkey, and the Archipelago of Greece, and

is perhaps the bee noticed by Virgil. Either this species, or possibly

one distinct from ours, is that which is so extensively cultivated in

Spain, although ours is found in Barbary.

Another smaller kind, the _Apis fasciata_, has been cultivated in Egypt

from time immemorial, and which yielded its abundant harvests for the

gratification of the ancient Romans. Only five other distinct species,

so far as is yet known to us, appear to occupy the vast continent of

Africa,—two on its western coast at Senegal and Congo, the _A.

Adansonii_ and the _A. Nigritarium_; two in Caffraria, the _A.

scutellata_ and the _Apis Caffra_. That at Madagascar, and doubtless on

the adjacent mainland, which has also been naturalized in the Mauritius

and at Réunion, is the _Apis unicolor_, which produces the green honey

mentioned above.

India, however, at present appears to be the true metropolis of the

genus. Further discoveries in Africa may hereafter give that vastly

larger continent the predominancy; but there is no doubt that, so far as

present information extends, India has the superiority. Thus _Apis

dorsata_, _Apis nigripennis_, and _Apis socialis_, are cultivated in

Bengal, the latter being also found along the Malabar coast and at Java.

It is singular that the only instance of the occurrence of the very

distinct genera of _Apis_ and _Mellipona_, both honey-storing genera,

yet known to exist indigenously in the same locality, is found in this

island. At Pondicherry and its vicinity are found _Apis Delessertii_ and

_Apis Indica_. This latter bee is extensively cultivated, and its hives

are perhaps the most largely inhabited of any of the species; the

numbers occupying a single nest being estimated at above eighty

thousand.

From India also, but to which no special locality is assigned, come

_Apis Perrottetii_, _Apis lobata_, as likewise _Apis Peronii_, which is

equally native to the Isle of Timor. The honey produced by this last bee

is yellow, more liquid than ours, and of a very agreeable flavour.

Thus science dissipates the popular supposition, that a multiplicity of

the individuals of one species of this insect produces the tons of wax

and the myriads of gallons of honey that are annually consumed.

Which of these bees first benefited the human race, in its primitive

seat, and before the multiplication of mankind forced them to take

divergent courses from the cradle of their birthrace, “to people the

whole earth,” it is impossible to say. And it is equally impossible to

conjecture whether, like man, they by this course of migration have

assumed the features they now exhibit of distinctly different species;

yet they do not vary so considerably among themselves as do many other

creatures that have come under the direct influence of man,—the chief

differences consisting in the comparatively slight distinctions of

colour and of size, but which are sufficiently marked to constitute them

good species.

The earliest manuscript extant, which is the Medical papyrus, now in the

Royal Collection at Berlin, and of which Brugsch[2] has given a

facsimile and a translation, dates from the nineteenth or twentieth

Egyptian dynasty, accordingly from the reign of Ramses II., and thus

goes back to the fourteenth century before our era. But a portion of

this papyrus indicates a much higher antiquity, extending as far back as

the period of the sovereigns who built the Pyramids, consequently to the

very earliest period of the history of the world.

Footnote 2:

‘Recueil de Monuments Égyptiens dessinés sur les lieux.’ In Three

Parts. 4to. Leipzig, 1862.

It was one of the medical treatises contained within the Temple of Ptah,

at Memphis, and which the Egyptian physicians were required to use in

the practice of their profession, and if they neglected such use, they

became responsible for the death of such patients who succumbed under

their treatment, it being attributed to their contravening the sacred

prescriptions. This pharmacopœia enumerates amongst its many

ingredients, honey, wine, and milk; we have thus extremely early

positive evidence of the cultivation of bees. That they had been

domesticated for use in those remote times, is further shown by the fact

mentioned by Sir Gardiner Wilkinson of a hive being represented upon an

ancient tomb at Thebes.

It may have been in consequence of some traditional knowledge of the

ancient medical practice of the Egyptians, that Mahomet, in his Koran,

prescribes honey as a medicine. One of the Suras, or chapters, of that

work, is entitled ‘The Bee,’ and in which Mahomet says:—“The Lord spake

by inspiration unto the Bee, saying, ‘Provide thee houses in the

mountains and in the trees [clearly signifying the cavities in rocks and

hollows of trees, wherein the bees construct their combs], and of those

materials wherewith men build hives for thee; then eat of every kind of

fruit, and walk in the beaten paths of thy Lord.’ There proceedeth from

their bellies a liquor of various colours, wherein is a medicine for

men. Verily herein is a sign unto people who consider.”

It is remarkable that the bee is the only creature that Mahomet assumes

the Almighty to have directly addressed. Al-Beidawi, the Arabic

commentator upon the Koran, whose authority ranks very high, in notes

upon passages of the preceding extract, says, “The houses alluded to are

the combs, whose beautiful workmanship and admirable contrivance no

geometrician can excel.” The “beaten paths of thy Lord,” he says, “are

the ways through which, by God’s power, the bitter flowers, passing the

bee’s stomach, become honey; or, the methods of making honey he has

taught her by instinct; or else the ready way home from the distant

places to which that insect flies.” The liquor proceeding from their

bellies, Al-Beidawi says, “is the honey, the colour of which is very

different, occasioned by the different plants on which the bees feed;

some being white, some yellow, some red, and some black.” He appends a

note to where Mahomet says, “therein is a medicine for man,” which

contains a curious anecdote. The note says, “The same being not only

good food, but a useful remedy in several distempers. There is a story

that a man once came to Mahomet, and told him his brother was afflicted

with a violent pain in his belly; upon which the Prophet bade him give

him some honey. The fellow took his advice; but soon after, coming

again, told him that the medicine had done his brother no manner of

service. Mahomet answered: ‘_Go and give him more honey_, for God speaks

truth, and thy brother’s belly lies.’ And the dose being repeated, the

man, by God’s mercy, was immediately cured.”

That the primitive Egyptians were familiar with the peculiar economy of

the bee in its monarchical institution is proved by the figure of the

bee being adopted as the symbolical character expressive of the idea of

a people governed by a sovereign. This figure is frequently met with

upon Egyptian sculptures and tablets, dating as far back as the twelfth

dynasty; but upon these the bee is very rudely represented, being

figured with only four legs and two wings; but upon a tablet of the

twentieth dynasty the bee is correctly represented with four wings and

six legs.

All these facts take us far back in the history of the bee. But the

indication of a higher antiquity of its domestication may be traced in

the Sanskrit, wherein _ma_ signifies honey, _madhupa_, honey-drinker,

and _madhukara_, honey-maker, the root of the latter signifying “to

build.” _Madhu_ has clearly the signification of our _mead_, thence we

may thus trace an affinity, pointing to those early times, for the

origin of a drink still in use amongst us. In Chinese _mih_, or _mat_

(in different dialects) signifies honey, thus clearly showing a second

derivation, in this Turonian term, from a more primitive language whence

both flowed. In the Shemitic branch nothing analogous is to be traced.

But this double convergence to a more distant point veiled in the

obscurity of time, necessarily takes the domestication of the bee back

also to that anterior period now only dimly traceable.

There can be but little doubt that the majority of the creatures now

domesticated by man were in those ancient days subjected to his sway,

and to which later times have not added any, or but few fresh ones. A

natural instinct possibly prompted him originally in the selection; and

if the reindeer of the Laplander seem an aberration, this has happened

through the contingency of climate, for in the high latitudes it

inhabits, it, in its uses to man, supplies the double function performed

in more southern regions by the equine and bovine tribes.

In the Greek and in the Teutonic languages, two branches of the Aryan

stem, the names of the bee, _melissa_ and _biene_, are clearly derived

from the constructive faculty of the insect, and to which the root of

the Sanskrit word _madhukara_, above noticed, also points. It would

seem, therefore, that an earlier notice of its skill than of its honey,

had suggested its name. Thus everything points to a very early

acquaintance with the bee, its economy, and its properties, and this

familiarity might be easily traced down in regular succession to the

present times, were it desirable to recapitulate what has been so often

repeated in the history of the “Honey-bee.” The facts I have gathered

together above, do not seem to have been hitherto strung together, and

may be suggestive of reflection, as well as affording some amusement.

-------

The study of the geographical distribution of natural objects has a more

universal bearing, and yields collectively more definite instruction and

information than its partial treatment, when restricted to small groups,

may at first seem to promise. This, however, is very useful, for it is

but by the combination of such special details that the enlarged views

are to be obtained, from which theories of the general laws of

distribution can be deduced. Of course, small creatures with locomotive

capacities will not supply the positive conclusions that may be framed

from such objects as are fixed to their abode, and have not the same

power of diffusion, although they certainly appear to be generally

restrained within particular limits by physical conditions of the

earth’s surface subservient to the maintenance of special forms of

organic life; and these, once determined, would yield and derive

reciprocal illustration. They may be merely climatic, but climate thus

indicated cannot be estimated by zones, or belts, or regions; for they

seem to traverse all these, and follow undulations not specially

appreciable except in the results they exhibit.

Unfortunately the bees have been too imperfectly collected, and too

irregularly registered, to admit of arriving at any precise conclusions

with respect to them. All that can as yet be done will be to combine the

scanty notices afforded by the contents of our collections, in the hope

that their promulgation may induce collectors, who happen to have the

often extremely rare opportunity of examining distant countries, to

avail themselves of the happy chance, which may never recur, or only at

long intervals.

Nor can I too impressively reiterate the importance of noting both

special localities, altitude, temperature, season, flora, etc., as being

all conducive to the widest instruction upon the subject. Indulging in

the hope that travellers will act upon these suggestions, and thus

considerably add to the value of what they may industriously collect, we

must patiently await until time brings it about.

Encouraging this expectation, I have summarily collected, under their

topical arrangement, the notices which precede, but which are there

arranged in the generic order of the bees.

From the information we thus possess, we learn that some of our genera

have an extremely wide diffusion, and occur in countries where we might

have expected that other forms would have superseded them in the offices

they are ordained to fulfil. None of the schemes for the geographical

distribution of insects yet propounded, seem to curb the eccentricities

of their range. The regions proposed by Fabricius in his ‘Philosophia

Entomologica,’ they break through as readily as through the concentric

circles of the cobweb when this opposes them: and all I can do is to

present them as they offer themselves, with the remark that the

occurrence of solitary forms in certain localities are almost sure

indications that allied genera would be found at hand were they

heedfully sought. It will also be observed, that in some places a

parasitical genus, and its known sitos, only, have been captured there.

The following list will strongly show how totally our genera of bees are

unaffected by isothermal, isotheral, or isocheimal lines drawn over the

earth’s surface. Nor do botanical conditions seem to influence them

beyond, the probability of their dissemination being restricted to the

special diffusion of the families of such plants whose genera and

species they frequent with us.

Thus, inhabiting Northern Europe we find in—

_Lapland._ Cilissa; Anthophora; Epeolus; Megachile; Chelostoma;

Heriades; Osmia; Apathus; Bombus; Apis.

_Finland._ Colletes; Prosopis; Cilissa; Anthophora; Nomada; Epeolus;

Stelis; Cœlioxys; Megachile; Anthidium; Chelostoma; Heriades;

Osmia; Apathus; Bombus; Apis.

_Sweden._ All our genera except Sphecodes; Halictus; Macropis;

Anthocopa.

_Denmark._ All our genera except Macropis and Anthocopa.

_Russia._ All our genera except Macropis and Anthocopa.

_The other Northern European Countries._ All our genera, with the same

exceptions.

Western, Southern, and Eastern Europe present us with, in—

_France._ All our genera.

_Portugal._ Prosopis; Sphecodes; Andrena; Halictus; Eucera; Nomada;

Anthidium; Apathus; Bombus; Apis.

_Spain._ Prosopis; Sphecodes; Andrena; Halictus; Dasypoda; Eucera;

Anthophora; Nomada; Megachile; Anthidium; Apathus; Bombus; Apis.

_Italy._ Andrena; Halictus; Panurgus; Eucera; Anthophora; Nomada;

Melecta; Epeolus; Cœlioxys; Megachile; Anthidium; Osmia; Apathus;

Bombus; Apis.

_Sicily._ Prosopis; Sphecodes; Eucera; Anthophora; Melecta; Epeolus;

Megachile; Anthidium; Osmia; Apathus; Bombus; Apis.

_Malta._ Halictus; Apis.

_Isles of Greece._ Dasypoda; Apis.

_The Morea._ Prosopis; Sphecodes; Halictus; Dasypoda; Eucera;

Anthophora; Ceratina; Nomada; Melecta; Anthidium; Chelostoma;

Osmia; Bombus; Apis.

_Albania._ Prosopis; Sphecodes; Dasypoda; Eucera; Ceratina; Nomada;

Melecta; Megachile; Anthidium; Osmia; Bombus; Apis.

_Dalmatia._ Halictus; Eucera; Anthophora; Megachile; Anthidium; Apis.

Asia exhibits to us, in—

_Siberia._ Andrena; Nomada; Epeolus; Bombus; Apis.

_Kamchatka._ Bombus.

_China._ Halictus; Nomada; Anthophora; Megachile; Bombus; Apis.

_Northern India._ Prosopis; Sphecodes; Andrena; Halictus; Ceratina;

Nomada; Cœlioxys; Megachile; Bombus; Apis.

_Bengal._ Anthophora; Ceratina; Apis.

_Tranquebar._ Nomada; Apis.

_Ceylon._ Anthophora; Ceratina; Apis.

_Bombay._ Anthophora; Megachile; Apis.

_Arabia Felix._ Anthophora; Anthidium; Apis. NOTE.—The genus _Apis_

does not occur in _Oman_.

_Mesopotamia._ Eucera; Nomada; Melecta; Megachile; Anthidium.

_Syria._ Halictus; Eucera; Anthophora; Cœlioxys; Anthidium; Bombus;

Apis.

In Africa we find, in—

_Egypt._ Colletes; Sphecodes; Andrena; Dasypoda; Eucera; Anthophora;

Saropoda; Cœlioxys; Anthidium; Osmia; Apis.

_Nubia._ Anthidium; Anthophora; Apis.

_Abyssinia._ Megachile; Apis.

_Tunis._ Dasypoda; Nomada; Apis.

_Algeria._ Colletes; Prosopis; Sphecodes; Andrena; Panurgus; Eucera;

Anthophora; Ceratina; Nomada; Cœlioxys; Megachile; Anthidium;

Osmia; Bombus; Apis.

_Barbary._ Halictus; Nomada; Anthidium; Osmia; Apis.

_Madeira._ Halictus; Apis.

_Canaries._ Colletes; Sphecodes; Andrena; Halictus; Anthophora;

Melecta; Osmia; Apis.

_Senegal._ Halictus; Anthophora; Ceratina; Megachile; Apis.

_Gambia._ Cœlioxys; Megachile; Anthidium; Apis.

_Sierra Leone._ Halictus; Cœlioxys; Megachile; Anthidium; Apis.

_Coast of Guinea._ Anthophora; Cœlioxys; Megachile; Anthidium; Apis.

_Fernando Po._ Megachile.

_Western Africa._ Halictus; Apis.

_Cape of Good Hope._ Halictus; Anthophora; Ceratina; Epeolus;

Cœlioxys; Megachile; Anthidium; Apis.

_South Africa_ [no distinct locality]. Halictus; Saropoda; Apis.

_Natal._ Anthophora; Cœlioxys; Megachile; Anthidium; Osmia; Apis.

_Madagascar._ Apis.

_Réunion._ Halictus; Apis.

_Mauritius._ Megachile; Apis.

In America we find, in—

_Arctic America and Hudson’s Bay._ Prosopis; Andrena; Halictus;

Megachile; Osmia; Bombus.

_Canada and Nova Scotia._ Andrena; Halictus; Nomada; Cœlioxys;

Megachile; Osmia; Bombus.

_United States._ Colletes; Sphecodes; Andrena; Cilissa; Halictus;

Eucera; Anthophora; Ceratina; Epeolus; Stelis; Cœlioxys;

Anthidium; Chelostoma; Heriades; Osmia; Apathus; Bombus.

_Mexico._ Anthophora; Epeolus; Megachile; Anthidium; Bombus.

_California._ Bombus.

_Columbia._ Colletes; Bombus.

_Quito._ Bombus.

_Chili._ Sphecodes; Halictus; Anthophora; Melecta; Epeolus; Anthidium;

Bombus.

_Jamaica._ Halictus.

_Cuba._ Anthophora; Cœlioxys; Megachile.

_St. Domingo._ Anthophora.

_Antigua._ Bombus.

_Guadeloupe._ Anthophora.

_St. Thomas’s._ Cœlioxys; Megachile.

_St. Croix._ Megachile.

_Cayenne._ Halictus; Eucera; Ceratina; Cœlioxys; Anthidium; Bombus.

_Pará._ Anthophora; Cœlioxys; Bombus.

_Brazils._ Prosopis; Halictus; Ceratina; Epeolus; Stelis; Cœlioxys;

Megachile; Anthidium; Apathus; Bombus.

_Paraguay._ Anthophora.

_Monte Video._ Bombus.

In Polynesia there occur—

_Sandwich Islands._ Prosopis.

_Philippines._ Anthophora; Nomada; Megachile.

In Australia are found—

_Swan River._ Prosopis; Megachile.

_Adelaide._ Prosopis; Megachile.

_Port Phillip._ Prosopis.

_Tasmania._ Prosopis; Megachile.

_Sydney._ Sphecodes; Halictus.

_New Zealand._ Halictus.

_Australia_ [but no distinct locality]. Anthophora; Saropoda.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER IV

NOTICE OF THE MORE CONSPICUOUS FOREIGN GENERA OF BEES.

SEEING thus the wide and almost universal distribution of many of our

own genera, we might be induced to ask whether this could not suffice,

by the impetus which more genial climates give to the multiplication of

individuals, to meet all the exigencies of the most favoured regions of

the vegetable kingdom. This is not so. There seems scarcely a limit to

the exuberance wherein nature revels in the production of variations of

form. The splendour, elegance, and infinite variety which she displays

in her floral beauties in the most luxuriant climates, find rivalry as

well in the multitude as in the magnificence of the insects which she

has allied with them as the indispensable promoters of their

perpetuation. How otherwise than through some of the insects we shall

mention could tropical _Labiatæ_ and the tubulated flowers of the

_Rubiaceæ_, etc. be fertilized? The reader will therefore, I trust,

welcome an acquaintance with some of the most conspicuous of the group

of bees produced by tropical countries, although the main object of this

treatise is to exhibit the attractions of “our native bees.”

I will but superficially and rapidly glance at the more distinguished

exotic genera and species, as supplementary to the preceding notice of

the geographical range of those which are indigenous with us.

How our own species reached us is a subject which has at present eluded

all satisfactory determination. For its solution we must await the

further discoveries of geology; at present we can only attribute their

advent here to the same causes which are common to the production of all

our groups of both the animal and the vegetable kingdoms.

Knowing how affluent tropical and sub-tropical countries are in the

variety, size, and number of the forms, as well as in the splendour of

their plants and vertebrated animals, we may fairly expect as gorgeous a

richness in the insects they produce. Nor shall we be disappointed, for

the imperial magnificence of their _Lepidoptera_ and _Coleoptera_

guarantees an equivalent brilliancy in the other orders of insects, and

which is fully confirmed by the harmonious splendour of their bees.

They thus put forward claims to attention and must excite curiosity by

their beauty and size, which the comparative smallness of our own, and

the usual dulness of their colours do not possess. The latter only repay

notice upon close investigation, but they then as amply reward all

labour bestowed upon them by the mental recreation they yield, as their

more gaudy exotic rivals. The former present themselves obtrusively and

exact notice, whereas ours meekly solicit it by their humble but solid

allurements. Here, as well as there, we behold the works of a mighty

hand and of an immeasurable intelligence.

The bees throughout the world, as known collectively to the richest

cabinets, number about two thousand species. This host, in itself

numerically so large, solicits attention, for it is opposed to the

economy of nature that there should exist any without functions of

essential usefulness, making them important elements in her harmonious

order and necessary to her due course, irrespective of the instruction

to be derived from the study of the manifold varieties of structure,

which unquestionably point to distinguishing peculiarities of habits.

In the true bees the division of the _Dasygasters_ presents the fewest

differing generic forms: the _Nudipedes_ and _Scopulipedes_ exhibit more

numerous varieties, the preponderance being in favour of the

pollen-collecting bees (the latter), although the cuckoo-bees (the

_Nudipedes_) are very abundant, and taken _en masse_, are certainly the

handsomest. If it be absolutely the case that there are no parasites

amongst the _Andrenidæ_, this subfamily will add very largely to the

exotic pollinigerous majority, which thereby becomes extensively

subservient to the fruition of the vegetable kingdom.

Those bees which are exclusively inter- or sub-tropical, seem furnished

with larger capacities for fulfilling the special mission to which the

family is appointed. Their pollinigerous and honey-collecting organs are

peculiarly adapted both to the structure and luxuriance of the superb

vegetation of those regions, and to which they seem distinctly limited.

But that they are not considered equivalent to the entire demand of the

profuse bloom everywhere abounding, may be concluded from the tropical

range and distribution of many of our northern forms. Thus, whilst the

flora of those climates is strictly circumscribed in its diffusion, its

fauna, distinctly in the class of insects, and especially in the family

of bees, is very considerably less limited, in extension.

The exotic genera of bees which are peculiarly noticeable, either from

splendour, size, or remarkable eccentricities of structure, are

numerous. Tropical and sub-tropical regions of course abound with them,

in individuals, in species, and in genera; and when we reflect upon the

riches of the flora of those countries, which is perpetuated mainly by

the agency of insects, amongst which, in fulfilling this indispensable

demand, bees, as I have reiterated, are pre-eminently conspicuous, we

shall not even wonder that their number, although excessive in the

extreme, is considerably aided, in many cases, in the performance of

this task, by peculiarities of structure. Thus, the splendid Brazilian

genus _Euglossa_, although not conspicuous for size, is remarkably so

for the enormous development of its posterior tibiæ, which form very

large triangles, compared with the size of the insect, deeply hollowed

for the conveyance of pollen. Its tongue also, from the length of which

the genus derives its name, is, when extended, more than twice the

length of the body, and with which it is enabled to reach the nectarium,

seated within the depths of the longest tubes of flowers. Other exotic

bees, further to aid them in collecting pollen, in addition to the dense

brushes with which their posterior legs are variously covered, have each

individual hair of these thick brushes considerably thickened by hairs

given off laterally, and in some cases these again ramify. Sometimes, in

variation, the simple, single hairs have a spiral curve, which almost

equally enlarges the activity of their operation. This is also the case

with two very hairy-legged genera of our native bees, proximately allied

to each other in the methodical arrangement, _Dasypoda_ and _Panurgus_,

the hair of whose posterior legs have this spiral twist. The most

hairy-legged exotic bees are essentially the genera _Centris_ and

_Xylocopa_. Of the habits of the former we know nothing, but those of

the latter we are intimately acquainted with, through the elaborate

descriptions given by Réaumur and the Rev. L. Guilding, the latter of

whom made his observations upon a species found in the island of St.

Vincent’s, in the West Indies. This last genus exhibits in some of its

species the giants among the bees, and one is especially so, a native of

India, the _Xylocopa latipes_, which is an inch and a quarter long, and

more than three inches in the expansion of its black, acute wings; and

it is also noticeable from the anterior tarsus in the male being greatly

dilated and white, the bee itself being intensely black, and which in

this same sex has enormous eyes united at the vertex, as in the male

_Apis_, or drone. In this genus, as in many other genera of bees, there

is often a great discrepancy in the appearance of the sexes, they being

so totally dissimilar that no scientific skill has hitherto been able to

discover a clue for uniting together correctly, by scientific process

merely, the sexes of a species; thence the numbers of the species in

such genera are unduly augmented beyond their natural limits, from the

fact of observation having neglected to associate the legitimate

partners.

In some of our native genera this same difficulty existed, which,

however, is gradually diminishing as the authentic sexes are slowly

discovered.

Exotic bees exhibit also a peculiarity I had occasion to observe before,

in reference to our own bees, amounting perhaps to a law, viz the more

highly-coloured condition of the parasite, for we find all the

parasitical bees of those latitudes, usually gorgeously arrayed in

metallic splendour, as instanced in _Aglaë_, _Mesonychia_, _Mesocheira_,

etc., and _Melissoda_ (my _Ischnocera_, in Lardner), is remarkably

conspicuous for its long and delicately slender antennæ in the male,

each joint of which is nodose at its extremity.

The widely-distributed _Nomia_ seems to abound chiefly in India. It,

although neither gay nor large, has, in its males, a distinguishing form

of the posterior tibiæ, which is greatly incrassated or thickened; a

peculiarity of structure found also in some other genera of

_Hymenoptera_, and in several genera of the _Diptera_, giving the

insects which have it a remarkable gait.

The singularly anomalous distortion of these posterior legs is

conspicuous also in the genus _Ancylosceles_, which is named in allusion

to it.

Another remarkable peculiarity is to be observed in the above genus,

_Mesocheira_, as likewise in the superb _Acanthopus_, both of which

genera have the spur of the intermediate leg palmated at the extremity,

and the latter genus is further distinguished by its large size and

splendid development, and by having the fifth joint of the tarsus of the

posterior legs longer than the three preceding united, and covered with

a pollinigerous brush as dense as that of the elongate first joint of

the same limb.

But the foreign genera which will be most interesting to the reader

will, I expect, be those of _Trigona_ and _Mellipona_, which, in many

peculiarities, seem abortive _Apes_. They seem nature’s first endeavour

to construct _Apis_, for they have an apparently imperfect neuration of

the wing, in which the external submarginal cell is unfinished. Their

only separating distinction from each other is the difference in their

mandibles, which in _Mellipona_ are broad and edentate, whereas in

_Trigona_ they are also broad but denticulated. In _Apis_ these organs

are merely irregularly enlarged at the extremity, and hollowed within,

rather like a spoon, which structure would of course imply a difference

of economy.

A further characteristic of these genera, and in which they participate

with _Apis_, is the deficiency of spurs to the posterior tibiæ, which

separates them from all other genera of bees, as also from _Bombus_,

which has two, yet with which, in point of their economy, they more

closely assimilate than with _Apis_. They are the South American and

Australian indigenous representatives of the genus _Apis_, and are found

likewise in Java and Sumatra, and in some of the larger and extreme

islands of the Indian Archipelago, thus also similarly in countries

where marsupial animals occur. Like _Apis_, they are social in their

habits; but their neuters only are as yet known, neither males nor

females having been described. They are reputed to be stingless, and to

make honey and wax in enormous quantities. The combs in _Mellipona_ are

attached either to the branches of trees or are suspended from them, but

how they are enveloped for security is not reported, but sometimes, like

_Apis_, they construct them within hollow trees and in the cavities of

rocks, as in _Trigona_, in like manner as _Apis_ does in its natural

state. Their communities are not so large as those of the hive bee, and

the cells of their combs are less perfectly hexagonal, the wax being

expended upon them in denser quantities, whereas the hive bee is

exceedingly parsimonious in the use of this material, a circumstance

arising possibly from the different and more difficult mode the latter

have of obtaining it. In the latter it is a secretion; but these exotic

genera possibly collect their wax ready-made by the exudation of plants,

and, thus, having more readily obtained it, they are more lavish in its

use.

Early travellers and historians describe many kinds of honey made by

these bees, native to the South American continent, but they report

nothing of the peculiarities of the social economy of these insects, nor

whether they are as closely allied in this respect to _Apis_, as they

are in the collection of honey and wax.

To enter into further detail relative to them would be beyond the

province of this work, and I have only given this extremely superficial

and brief notice of foreign genera, to show what multitudes of others of

this interesting family await admiration and study, when some

proficiency has been acquired in the knowledge of our own.

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CHAPTER V

PARASITES OF BEES AND THEIR ENEMIES.

NATURE seems to have imposed a restraint upon the undue increase of all

its creatures, by creating, to check it, others that prey upon them. It

thus enlarges the sphere of its activity by making life accessory to

life, and promoting thereby a more extended enjoyment of all its

pleasures. Other forms are brought into existence, and other terms given

to duration than those which the laws of life attach to specific

organization. No abatement is thereby made upon the quantity of

contemporaneous vitality, for what subsides in one rises in another, and

the undulation of the waves is perpetual.

Does the quantity of life, extant upon the earth, vary? Perhaps

mortality ever comes in some shape to prevent it, when excess threatens

to render its energy effete. Yet under every circumstance the wise

arrangements of Providence suffice, for everything has its enemies or

its parasites, which are also enemies, but frequently in disguise. For

defence there is an implanted instinctive fear, or abhorrence; and the

creature is then left to its skill, prudence, or strength, either to

evade or to mitigate, to the extent of its capability, the danger of the

attack.

We find the bees are not at all exempted from this prevailing condition.

They have many enemies and parasites of remarkably differing

organization. They are attacked by many kinds of birds, among which the

_Merops Apiaster_ (or bee-eater) is conspicuous. All the swallow tribe

prey upon them, as do the shrikes and some of the soft-billed small

birds, and also many small quadrupeds when they can find the

opportunity. Wasps also attack them, but they do not often get entangled

in spiders’ nets, being generally too strong for the retention of its

meshes, but I have seen a _Bombus_ enveloped in a tangle of its

wonderful filament.

The wild bees’ parasites are of two kinds, personal, and such which,

like the young of cuckoos, live at the expense of the offspring. The

personal parasites are again of two kinds, for bees are infested with

several kinds of _Acari_, and once I found a _Bombus_ upon the ground in

Coombe Wood so swarming with the _Acarus_ that it lay hopelessly

helpless until I threw it into a pool of water, when its _attachés_ were

washed away. But the poor bee seemed so prostrated by their attack, that

even when freed from them it had not energy to fly, and having landed it

I left it to the kindly nursing of nature.

A little yellow hexapod larva sometimes also infests the wild bees in

great numbers, running over and about them with great activity. I have

never followed these to their development, but they are said to be the

larvæ of _Meloe proscarabæus_, a conspicuously large coleopterous

insect. The assertion has produced much discussion; and I believe the

larva has been bred to the imago, and consequently it has been proved

that it is the larva of that insect. But that it should be parasitical

upon so small a creature, and that numbers should infest it for their

nutriment, is extremely improbable. It is far more likely that instinct

has taught them to be conveyed elsewhere through the medium of the bee,

as they might also be by attaching themselves to any other volatile

insect, and that upon arriving at a suitable locality they descend from

their temporary hippogriff. We see seeds thus conveyed by the agency of

animals and birds to suitable places, where they fall and germinate.

Another little hexapod is occasionally found upon them: this is

intensely black, and like the former, very active: these I never could

rear, nor did they ever seem to enlarge, and they speedily died. I have

found them in profusion also within the flowers of _syngenesious_ or

composite plants, especially of the dandelion in the spring.

But their most remarkable personal parasites consist of some very

extraordinary insects, so anomalous in their structure as to have

required the construction of an order for their reception,—the Order

_Strepsiptera_, or “twisted-winged,” thus named from the twist taken by

their anterior wings or wing-cases. Their natural history is but

imperfectly known, and I believe the males have not yet been discovered.

Their larva lives within the bee, and feeds on its viscera by

absorption, being attached within by a sort of umbilical cord. It

presently consumes the viscera, and renders the bee abortive, by

destroying its ovaries, for it is usually upon female bees that it is

found. When full fed it forms a case within which it changes into the

pupa and imago, the head of which case protrudes between the scales of

one of the dorsal segments of the abdomen. How it becomes deposited

within the bee or the bee’s larva remains a mystery, although many

hypotheses have been hazarded to account for it, but all are

unsatisfactory. The Order consists of three genera (_Stylops_,

_Elenchus_, and _Halictophagus_) found in England, and other parts of

Europe; indeed, the genus _Elenchus_ has been also discovered in the

Mauritius. The Continent possesses the genus _Xenos_, of the same order,

and parasitical upon a wasp, neither of which occur with us.

Mr. Kirby, in studying the bees for his invaluable ‘Monographia Apum

Angliæ,’ first came across this extraordinary creature. His description

of his discovery is highly interesting. He says, at page 111 of volume

ii. of the above work, that having observed a protuberance upon the body

of the bee, he was anxious to ascertain whether it might be an _Acarus_,

and goes on: “What was my astonishment when, upon attempting to

disengage it with a pin, I drew forth from the body of the bee, a white

fleshy larva, a quarter of an inch long, the head of which I had

mistaken for an _Acarus_. How this animal receives its nutriment seems a

mystery. Upon examining the head under a strong magnifier, I could not

discover any mouth or proboscis with which it might perforate the

corneous covering of the abdomen, and so support itself by suction; on

the under side of the head, at its junction with the body there was a

concavity, but I could observe nothing in this but a uniform unbroken

surface. As the body of the animal is inserted in the body of the bee,

does that part receive its nutriment from it by absorption? After I had

examined one specimen, I attempted to extract a second, and the reader

may imagine how greatly my astonishment was increased, when, after I had

drawn it out but a little way, I saw its skin burst, and a head as black

as ink, with large staring eyes, and antennæ consisting of two branches,

break forth, and move itself briskly from side to side. It looked like a

little imp of darkness just emerging from the infernal regions. I was

impatient to become better acquainted with so singular a creature. When

it was completely disengaged, and I had secured it from making its

escape, I set myself to examine it as carefully as possible; and I

found, after a careful inquiry, that I had not only got a nondescript,

but also an insect of a new genus whose very class seemed dubious.”

As everything connected with so strange a creature is very attractive, I

will cite what other observers also have seen. Mr. Dale, from whom

Curtis received _Elenchus_ to figure in his ‘British Entomology,’ vol.

v. pl. 226, says: “These parasites look milk-white on the wing, with a

jet-black body, and are totally unlike anything else. It flew with an

undulating or vacillating motion amongst the young shoots of a quickset

hedge, and I could not catch it until it settled upon one, when it ran

up and down, its wings in motion, and making a considerable buzz or hum,

as loud as a _Sesia_; it twisted about its rather long tail, and turned

it up like a _Staphylinus_. I put it under a glass and placed it in the

sun; it became quite furious in its confinement, and never ceased

running about for two hours. The elytra or processes were kept in quick

vibration, as well as the wings; it buzzed against the sides of the

glass with its head touching it, and tumbling about on its back. By

putting two bees (_Andrena labialis_) under a glass in the sun, two

_Stylops_ were produced: the bees seemed uneasy, and went up towards

them, but evidently with caution, as if to fight; and moving their

antennæ towards them, retreated. I once thought the bee attempted to

seize it; but the oddest thing was to see the _Stylops_ get on the body

of the bee and ride about, the latter using every effort to throw his

rider.

“As the _Stylops_ emerges from the body of the bee, the latter seems to

suffer from much irritating excitement.”

Mr. Thwaites writes to me, on the 12th May, thus: “I had the good

fortune to capture a _Stylops_ flying, and on the Tuesday following saw

at least twenty flying about in the garden, but so high from the ground

that I could capture only about half-a-dozen; since that time they have

become gradually more scarce.

“The little animals are exceedingly graceful in their flight, taking

long sweeps as if carried along by a gentle breeze, and occasionally

hovering at a few inches distance from the ground. Their expanse of wing

and mode of flight give them a very different appearance to any other

insect on the wing. When captured they are exceedingly active, running

up and down the sides of the bottle in which they are confined, moving

their wings and antennæ very rapidly. Their term of life seems to be

very short, none of those I have captured living beyond five hours, and

one I extracted from a bee in the afternoon was dead the next morning.

“All the bees stylopized, both male and female, I have taken, have

manifested it by having underneath the fourth (invariably) upper segment

of the abdomen a protuberance which is scale-like when the _Stylops_ is

in the larva state; but which is much larger and more rounded when the

_Stylops_ is ready to emerge. A bee gives nourishment generally to but

one _Stylops_; but I have occasionally found two, and once three larvæ

in one bee.”

The structure of these insects is very remarkable: the typical genus

_Stylops_ is named from its compound eyes, which consist of a very few

(about fifteen) hexagonal facets, seated upon a sort of footstalk. The

mandibles are lancet-shaped and very acute, and the head, by reason of

the protuberant eyes, has very much the shape of a dumb-bell. The

antennæ are branched, but in _Halictophagus_, they are flabellate. The

thorax is greatly developed; the superior wing is like a rudimentary

wing-case, and is twisted, the inferior wings are very large, and fold

along the abdomen in repose like a fan; the legs are slender, and the

tarsi with four joints in _Stylops_, with three in _Halictophagus_, and

with two in _Elenchus_; the abdomen is long, very flexible, and consists

of eight segments. The insects themselves do not exceed a quarter of an

inch in length in the largest, but they are generally very much smaller.

The perfect insect is very short-lived, not surviving many hours, as

just stated. They are usually found in the months of May and June, and

they have been discovered to infest several species of _Andrena_ and

_Halictus_, for instance the _A. nigro-ænea_, upon which Mr. Kirby first

found it; _A. labialis_, which I have frequently caught stylopized; _A.

rufitarsis_, _fulvicrus_, _Mouffetella_, _tibialis_, _Collinsonana_,

_varians_, _picicornis_, _nana_, _parvula_, _xanthura_, _convexiuscula_,

_Afzeliella_, _Gwynana_, etc., and upon _Halictus æratus_, etc.

The other mode of parasitism destructive to the bees is where the

parasite deposits its own egg upon the provender stored by the bee for

the sustenance of its own young. The young of the parasite, either by

being more speedily hatched or more rapacious than the larva of the

sitos, starves the latter by consuming its food. This kind of parasites

consists of several _Diptera_, but they are mostly bees which form a

distinctive subsection of the family of true bees (_Apidæ_), the

subsection being called the _Nudipedes_ or naked-legged, from their not

having the necessary apparatus of hair upon the posterior thighs or

shanks, for the conveyance of pollen wherewith to store their nests.

Thus nature, having rendered them unable to perform this duty to their

offspring, has imposed upon them the necessity of resorting to strangers

to support them, and they are not led to it by idleness or indifference.

These insects consist, with us, of six genera, the species of which are

individually attached to some particular bee, who thus nurtures their

young. They are, as a rule, gayer insects than those which they infest,

and the genus most abundant in species is _Nomada_, which attaches

itself chiefly to _Andrena_, although some of its species, especially

the smaller ones, infest the species of _Halictus_, and one frequents

_Eucera_. _Melecta_ appears confined to _Anthophora_; _Epeolus_ to

_Colletes_; _Stelis_ perhaps to _Osmia_, judging from the great

similarity of habit; and _Cœlioxys_ to the constructive _Megachile_.

None of these parasites resemble their sitos, but _Nomada_ is

exceedingly different, being in its gay array more like a wasp than a

bee. The only close approach in the appearance of a parasite to the

insect upon which it is parasitical is in the resemblance between

_Apathus_ and _Bombus_, which are so alike that they were long continued

to be united in the same genus, until the peculiar characteristic of the

parasitical bees was detected, when they were readily separated.

Although, cuckoo-bees as they are familiarly called, they could not be

associated with the _Nudipedes_, because their posterior legs, though

not pollen-conveying organs, are hairy; but the _Cenobites_, to which

section they belong, have a peculiar and distinguishing structure of

that limb. They are further separated from the _Nudipedes_ by several

frequenting the same nest, thus habitually associating with their sitos.

Some of the _Chrysididæ_ are likewise, as I shall have occasion to

notice in the description of the habits of the genera, similarly

parasitical upon some of the species of the family of bees. The genus

_Mutilla_ is also probably entirely parasitical upon bees, for _Mutilla

Europæa_ is a parasite upon _Bombus lapidarius_, from whose nests it has

been dug in winter, by my friend the late Mr. Pickering, whose activity

and accurate observation once promised to be very beneficial to the

science, but he, like many others of my entomological friends, is now no

more!

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CHAPTER VI

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT.

THE following rapid observations are addressed to those whom it is the

desire that this series of volumes may induce to take up the study of

Nature in a methodical manner. With this view, the merest summary of the

principles upon which scientific arrangement is based, is here

exhibited. The study requires method as a lodestar to guide through its

intricacies, but it is one which, pursued simply as a recreation, yields

both much amusement and gratifying instruction. It shows us that when we

unclasp the book of nature, and wherever we may turn its leaves, every

word, the syllables of which we strive to spell, is pregnant with the

fruitfulness of wonderful wisdom, whose profound expression the human

intellect is too limited thoroughly to comprehend.

Is there an arrangement that human skill could mend? Is there an

organization that man can fully solve, or a combination that his mind

can wholly compass? Do we not behold limitless perfection everywhere,

but all so deeply mysterious. So exquisite are the feelings which the

contemplation commands, that they imbue us deeply with the sense of the

high privilege conferred upon the intellect by its being permitted to

embrace a study, which, even pursued merely as a relaxation, inculcates

in so serene and pleasing a manner such profound veneration and

reverence.

To acquire the prospect of a possibility to unravel the exuberant

profusion of the natural objects surrounding us, successive students of

nature have endeavoured to systematize the seeming confusion in which

her riches are spread about. Like has been brought to like, and

gradation made to succeed gradation. Resemblances have been combined and

disparities disjoined, until the labour of centuries has constructed of

all the natural objects within the ken of man a vast and towering

edifice, whose basis is seated at the lowest substructure of the earth

which research has yet reached, but whose head ascends high into the

empyrean.

All things have been collected, and arranged, and classed. Method has

endeavoured to give them succession according to an assumed

subordination. The labour of the great minds which framed the large

theories of this vast branch of human knowledge, has permitted men of

lesser powers of combination to abstract parts for special examination

and investigation.

The study of natural science has progressively reached an extraordinary

development, spreading in every direction its innumerable tentacula; to

which the perfection of the telescope and of the microscope have still

further added by the discovery of new worlds of wonder.

Just as language is systematized and made easier by grammar methodizing

its co-ordinates and their relations, so natural science arranges its

subjects into subdivisions of which genera and species are the lowest

terms. The higher and more complicated are of many denominations, which,

notwithstanding, have for their chief purpose the simplification of the

survey by assisting accurately to determine accurately natural objects

individually. Once the clue of the labyrinth caught, the seeming

intricacy of its involution vanishes; for when a clear conception of the

general scheme is obtained, the solution of the parts is comparatively

easy. The same principle rules throughout, however variously treated.

The large divisions of nature appear simple and distinct enough in their

great frame, but when we approach their confines, close investigation

discovers analogies and affinities, which, where the separation seems

most apparent, create insuperable difficulties, and render linear

succession, or distinct division, nearly an impossibility. _Here_ we

find parallelism, and _there_ radiation, and elsewhere a complicated

reticulation without subordination; and this is one of the great

problems, which it is the office of the mature naturalist to endeavour

to solve. The present work has to do, however, with but one small

portion of the whole.

Thus we see that, in order to arrive at a knowledge of natural objects,

a method must be pursued to avoid being overwhelmed by their

multiplicity, whereby confusion would be produced in the mind which

their methodical investigation tends to dissipate. Their abundance

precludes the possibility of their being all equally well known,

although it is very desirable to have a general, if even superficial

acquaintance with them, that is to say, in the broad and distinguishing

features of their large groups, for as to an accurate knowledge of all

their species, it would be futile to attempt it. Possessing this general

knowledge, the attention may be turned with greater advantage in any

special direction, and that pursued to its entire acquisition.

Natural objects have been arranged in KINGDOMS, ORDERS, CLASSES,

FAMILIES, and GENERA, all deduced in their successive and collateral

groups from characters exclusively derived from SPECIES; therefore to

the accurate knowledge of _species_ all endeavours must be directed,

they comprising within themselves all the rest, although the characters

upon which they themselves depend for separation from their congeners

are the most trivial of any. Each combination, in its analytical

descent, contains characters of wider compass than those which succeed

it, and consequently embraces in that descent more species than the

successive divisions; just as in the ascent, or synthetical method, the

characters of every successive group gradually expand. Species being

thus the only real objects in nature from which all knowledge springs,

and in which exclusively all uses lie, other combinations being perhaps

as merely imaginary as are the many lines which are drawn over the

surface of the globes, it would imply that subdivisions merely lend aid

to acquire more rapidly the details upon which they depend. We will,

therefore, first turn our attention to species.

Both combination and subdivision are intended to facilitate

identification, by aiding us to arrive at this knowledge of species; for

each species represents a distinct idea, whose correct definition is

important to the progress of accurate science. This alone permits

observation to be attributed to its right object, and when properly

recorded, the information is secured for ever from error or obscurity.

It is not, however, the gift of every mind to discern accurately even

specific differences, or to form skilfully generic combinations. The

very best favoured by nature,—for it is a natural gift, although under

high cultivation,—have sometimes a bias towards seeing more than

actually exists. Hence varieties are often elevated into species, and

species thus overwhelmingly multiplied; and genera are frequently framed

upon vague distinctions.

Species are the basis of all natural science.

A species in zoology is a combination of creatures which unites the

sexes, and these being two, the assumed existence of neuters in some

instances does not invalidate this, it comprises two individuals having

independent existence, but whose co-existence is indispensable to

perpetuation, but which often, from their great differences, no single

set of scientific characters will bind together, yet which must exist in

some undiscovered peculiarity, that individuals may be able to

distinguish their legitimate partners. The species, therefore, is a

complete unit in its entirety, although consisting of two distinct

beings, for in the large majority of cases in zoology these sexes are

distinct, although their conjunction is, in the higher forms of life,

indispensable for their continuance. In some of the lower forms of

animal life they exist in union, and in the vegetable kingdom we

perceive every possible combination and modification of this

conjunction, and in both of these life may be perpetuated also by

simpler processes.

The species may consist of any indefinite number of individuals, and no

law has hitherto been discovered which regulates the relative

proportions of the sexes, although it is very apparent that some

recondite influence operates to control it. It is also extremely

remarkable to observe how eccentric nature is in some species, and the

extent to which she sometimes carries the variation of some particular

specific type, and to which some species are singularly prone, and yet

how rigidly in other cases she adheres to the particular specific form

in the succession of generations, that even the shadow of a deviation

from the typical distinction is scarcely to be discovered: a reason for

this it is hard to surmise. We may, nevertheless, conclude it to be

certain that true species are ever distinct, and can no more coalesce,

however closely they may approach together, than can asymptotes.

Specific differences result from many characteristics,—from colour,

clothing, size, and sometimes from peculiarities of structure; but these

last are usually of a higher order, tending to indicate an aberration,

slight though it be, from the normal generic character which holds the

group together, thus implying a distinctive economy. This is sometimes

called a subgeneric attribute, and there might be a reason, certainly,

for not elevating such species to the full rank of genera, were genera

equivalents, which they are not, and it merely remains an evasive

admission of the doubt that attaches, except for the sake of

convenience, to any subdivision, but the specific.

The species is thus the very last term of subdivision, the very

elemental principle itself, which unites together as one, solely for the

purposes of perpetuation, the two sexes of similar individuals, and

without whose intercourse the kind or species would die out.

That some species greatly abound in individuals, as before observed,

whilst others appear to be extremely limited, is an absolute fact, and

not merely suggested by a defective observation of their occurrence,

resulting from their rapid dispersion. It is verified by being noticed

to occur where we know they would resort, as is exemplified in the case

of some of the parasitical species of the insects herein treated of, and

which are sometimes rare, even in the vicinity of the metropolis of

their sitos, and where this also greatly abounds. In other cases, other

species absolutely swarm where the similar attraction lies.

Even supposing species to be the sole natural division, we may accept

the superior combinations as means to aid us to a gradually extending

survey of the whole. Perhaps did we possess all the links of the vast

chain of beings we should find genera, and every other superior

combination, melt away through the intimate alliance of the succession

of species that would obliterate the lines of separation, by making the

sutures imperceptible; but what mind could compass the detail of such a

limitless unbroken series? Their subdivision may therefore be accepted

as a positive necessity, to enable us to compass their investigation. As

it at present stands, with our imperfect knowledge of the entire series

of species, these higher groups are indispensably requisite.

The specific diagnosis being the only sure basis upon which all our

knowledge can rest, its accuracy is all-important, and requires a few

observations. It comprises two parts—the specific _character_, and the

specific _description_. The difference between these is, that the first

is constructed with the extremest brevity consistent with its utility,

is fluctuating and not permanent. The latter permits all the diffuseness

needful to embrace a full description of the creature.

The object of the first is to establish the _present_ identity of the

species amongst all its known congeners—those associated in the same

genus;—and that of the second to secure it in its perpetual identity,

and segregate it from all future and contingent discoveries. The

specific character admits, consequently, modifications to suit any

extension of the genus, and in fact exacts it at the hands of all who

describe new species. This many naturalists undertake without any

apparent consciousness of the scientific responsibilities that attach to

it, and whence results the confusion so much to be deplored, of the

synonymy that prevails, constituting, as it does, such a Dædalian

labyrinth. The describer of a new species is bound to cast around, and

endeavour to know all that has been previously done upon the subject of

the genus. He has to revise all the specific characters within the

genus, and mould them to those he introduces, and he must insert these

closest to their evident affinities. Thus, therefore, the describer’s

labour is not light, if to be of any value. The specific character,

although thus varying, becomes a permanent utility, and only so fulfils

its object,—that of rapidly showing, at a glance, the known species of a

genus, and thereby permitting the speedy determination of the identity

or distinctness of a compared object. If doubt should exist from this

brevity, the specific description is at hand to solve it, by the

amplitude and completeness of its details. Of course this mode of

treatment is only suitable to monographs, or portions of the science

discussed separately, and not to a general or universal survey.

The amount of toil thus saved to the describing naturalist, and to those

who wish to name their specimen, the experienced only can estimate. This

brevity of specific character is one of Linnæus’s terse and valuable

axioms, who limits its length to twelve words. The best examples, I

think, that I can adduce in entomology, of valuable and exemplary

specific descriptions, is Gyllenhal’s ‘Insecta Suecica’ which contains

exclusively a description of Swedish Coleoptera; Gravenhorst’s large

monograph of European Ichneumons; Erichson’s elaborate work upon the

Staphylinidæ; and our own Kirby’s ‘Monographia Apum Angliæ.’ Their

perfection consists in fulfilling thoroughly all the above conditions,

for if any doubt exist upon comparing your insect with their

descriptions, you may be fully assured yours is not identical. The only

drawback to the utility of Mr. Kirby’s book is that he had to deal with

insects variable in condition from many causes, and the variable state

of the insect that may have to be compared; his description has

evidently been made sometimes from a worn specimen, one that had been

exposed to wind and weather, and sometimes from an insect in fine

condition. Thus it is important that compared insects should be in an

identical state to substantiate the comparison,—a difficulty which this

family has specially to contend with, as these insects are more liable

than almost any others to vary, owing to their specific character

depending much upon pubescence, which is extremely subjected to many

modifying influences, for the tinges and positive colour of the hair

will much vary by exposure, as it is not possible always to capture a

bright individual.

Taking specific description thus practically in its full and wide sense,

it is requisite, for the purpose of avoiding repetition, that all the

characters of the superior combinations should be eliminated, leaving it

with those only which have not been thus absorbed, which now constitute

its sole remaining distinctive specific peculiarities. Every species

necessarily contains within itself, every character of every combination

in direct line above it, although these have been gradually abstracted

to form those several combinations which are arrived at successively in

the synthetical ascent. Analytically, species are the last but combining

element of all, although their most remote members. The whole system is

an ingenious contrivance for breaking down a complex multiplicity of

characters, to simplify the means of reaching all the collateral or

adjacent species, that we may be able to determine identity or

difference.

Entomology, and indeed natural history generally, uses three words, very

much alike, but very different in signification and application. These

are, _habit_, _habits_, and _habitat_. The habit is that peculiar

character of identity, that _je ne sais quoi_, which marks all the

species of a genus collectively, and which, in some cases, only the

trained eye can detect. It is then seen instantaneously, and forcibly

illustrates the extreme precision the study of the natural sciences

tends to cultivate. Their utility, also, as a discipline to the mind,

conjunctively with the keen accuracy which practice gives the sight, are

qualifications not lightly to be esteemed.

It is from such absolute control of detail that the most efficient power

of generalizing emanates, which, when it has once become habitual,

gives, from its rapidity, an almost instinctive facility, as its

inevitable concomitant, for both synthetical and analytical survey. The

mind thus becomes strengthened by vigorous exercise, and has always, for

every purpose, a powerful instrument at command, often used

unconsciously, but always effectively. Thus is _habit_, once correctly

perceived, ever retained.

The _habits_ are the peculiar manners and economy of a species; and the

_habitat_ is the kind of locality the creatures affect, such as hill or

plain, wood or meadow, forest or fell, hedgebank or decaying timber,

sand or chalk or clay, and ground vertical or horizontal; and the

_metropolis_ of a species—another term in use—is the centralization of

the general habitat where the insect either nidificates collectively

with its fellows, or, where, from any other cause, it may be found in

its season, usually in profusion. But good fortune does not always

attend the discovery of this locality.

It is by the acquired skill of perceiving habit, that a large and

confused collection may be sorted rapidly, or fresh captures immediately

placed with their congeners, without the necessity of going tediously

through all the descriptive characteristics. Incidental errors are

afterwards speedily corrected. It is then that the specific character

exhibits its utility by enabling us at once to distinguish the new from

the old.

The concentration and summary of the specific character is the name of

the species, or trivial name as it is sometimes called, which is, as it

were, the baptismal designation that attaches to it always afterwards,

and is contemporaneous with the introduction of the creature into the

series of recognized beings.

Upon the revival of the study of natural history, when learning dawned

after the night of the Middle Ages, much difficulty attached to the

imposition of discriminative names. The works of the ancients were

ransacked, and endeavours made to verify and apply the names they had

used. Ray published a vocabulary of such names. But the ancients never

studied natural history in the systematic way pursued by the moderns;

they did not want the skill, but they wanted the facilities. Anatomy and

physiology had not made the progress necessary to aid them in the

pursuit, and the assistance all these sciences obtain from optical

instruments was barred from them. The names they gave to natural objects

were vernacular names, which, like our own vernacular names, applied

rather to groups than to species, and have in consequence ultimately

become the names of genera. But this was the work of time, with which

discovery progressed. As these discoveries were made by the new

cultivators of natural history, they added them to those which they

resembled, by some brief distinctive character adapted to the momentary

exigency, such as _major_, or _minor_, etc.; and these additions were

constantly treated as varieties of the species, whose name headed the

list by the designation first adopted. Discoveries still continued,

which were compulsively arranged with the predecessors they most nearly

resembled, until resemblances vanished, and the boundaries fixed by the

assumed correct application of the names thus derived from the ancients

were passed, and there was an overflow on all sides.

To meet this difficulty, the new discriminative name had to be moulded

into a phrase to correct its exceptive peculiarities, and specific names

became descriptive phrases, the bulk of which no memory could retain,

and which usually were neither clear nor expressive. Thus genera were

continually treated as species, and species as numbered varieties, with

long distinguishing descriptive phrases.

So it remained till day dawned, and the great luminary of systematic

natural history rose with a bound to irradiate the obscurity of science

with his subtile and vivifying beams.

This was LINNÆUS, to whom we owe the binomial system, wherein, by means

of two words only (the generic or surname, and the specific or baptismal

name), the recognition of a species is perpetuated; for Linnæus truly

says, “_Nomina si nescis, perit et cognitio rerum_.”

By a law tacitly admitted, but universally recognized, for the sake of

securing to a name its intangibility, no two genera in the same kingdom

of nature may be named alike. There is, therefore, if this rule be

observed, no fear of similar names coming into collision in the same

province, and thus producing confusion. A ready means to prevent the

possibility of such mischance is the admirable work which has been

published by Agassiz, with the assistance of very able coadjutors, in

the ‘Nomenclator Zoologicus,’ which is a list of all the generic names

extant in zoology, exhibiting what names are already in use either

appropriately or synonymously in this great branch of the natural world,

and if this work receive periodically its necessary supplements and

additions, no excuse will remain for the repetition of a name already

applied. The most defective character in this laborious work, is the

frequent incorrectness of its etymology of the names of genera. It would

be, perhaps, without such aid, too great a labour to require of the

describing naturalist, or it might not be otherwise even practicable for

him, to ascertain whether the generic name he purposes to impose be, or

not, anticipated. The penalty of its being superseded is understood to

attach to the imposition of such a name, for the alteration may be made

with impunity, and thereby it becomes degraded to the rank of a mere

synonym.

Nomenclature has thus, by the happy invention of Linnæus, been made a

matter of the greatest simplicity, conciseness, and lucidity, and to

him, therefore, our gratitude is due.

An indispensable branch of nomenclature is _Synonymy_, which, briefly,

is the chronological list of the several names under which species or

genera may have been known. This diversity of names has originated in

several ways,—from indolence, or ignorance, or excessive refinement. The

views of systematists will differ in the collocation of creatures;

hence, sometimes what had been previously divided will be recombined, or

divisions into further groups be made of what had been before united.

Both processes will necessarily produce synonyms; the recombination of

what had been separated reduces the names of such groups to the rank of

synonyms of the old one from which they have been disjoined. In the

latter case the old name will be retained to the typical species merely,

and be also made a partial synonym of the names of the new generic

groups: or, indeed, it may happen that the same creature has been

described generically, unknowingly, by two different persons, about the

same time. By another recognized rule in nomenclature, the ‘law of

priority,’ the name given by the first describer is accepted, and the

other consequently falls to the condition of a synonym.

With respect to specific synonymy, many causes conduce to it; namely, an

imperfect description which cannot be clearly recognized, reducing it to

that category, with a mark of interrogation appended; subsequent

description when want of tact has not discerned the identity of the old

one; indolence in looking about for works upon the same subject;

inability to obtain access to books wherein they may be described, owing

either to their costliness or to their obscurity, or by lying buried in

some collapsed journal, or the poverty of our public libraries, etc.

etc. But however thus lost sight of, or wilfully ignored, the name still

retains vital elasticity, for the describer has not thereby lost his

rights, but revives to them with all due justice upon the cessation of

this coma. The really culpable among such describers are those who

neglect to look around them to ascertain what has been done, and this

course is sometimes illicitly adopted to obtain a fleeting and

meretricious fame, by the description of ostensibly new species, which

critical investigators soon detect to have been long since known and

very ably described.

Thus, a complete synonymy, which can almost only come within the

province of a monograph, would give, chronologically, the entire history

of a species under all the names it has been known by in the several

works in which it has been published. Nature is so uniform and stable

that Aristotle’s descriptions can be clearly recognized, therefore there

is no fear that whatever may have been synonymously, but yet correctly

recorded of the economy of a species, can possibly be lost when once

registered in the archives of science.

The working out of a correct synonymy is an ungrateful task of much

labour, for few appreciate it, and not many use it, although when

thoroughly elaborated it is so extremely valuable.

A further rule in nomenclature is, that the generic name must always be

a substantive; and it is always desirable that the specific name should

be an adjective. In the event of the imposition of a proper name, which

is sometimes done to record a private friendship, but improperly so, for

it is a distinction due only to promoters of the science, the genitive

form must be adopted.

The next grade in ascent from the species is invariably the GENUS, for

subgenera, like varieties in species, are not uniformly present, but are

mere contingencies, even if they do properly exist.

Why some genera abound in species and others are so limited is as

difficult to determine as the differing numerical abundance of

individuals in species. That long genera (genera numerous in species)

may be the result of natural selection, as Mr. Darwin surmises, and the

offspring of a common parentage, is contradicted, not merely by peculiar

although sometimes slight dissimilarities of habit, combined with size

and colour, but also if any lines of demarcation are to be admitted, it

is possible, were their generic similitude to be subjected to severe

test, they might present characteristics normally discrepant and

suggestive of further division, although the habit may be very like.

The generic grouping is effected by structural peculiarities, which are

essentially of a higher class than the characters of specific

separation, these being determined by colour, pubescence, sculpture,

etc. etc.; specific characters combining only individuals with such

peculiar inferior resemblances. The generic characters thus establish

groups of species allied only by such more general character and

similarity, but conjunctively of one permanent habit, although the

members of the genus may differ somewhat in habits, and so on of the

higher groups into which insects are collected, each group in its ascent

upwards presenting characteristics of a wider range than those of the

descending series. And so, by degrees, we rise until we reach the

characters which combine the whole order. The process is necessarily and

imperatively synthetical, for the whole foundation is based upon

species, and thence emanates the supposition that only species exist.

The _type_ of a genus is that species upon the characters of which the

genus was originally framed and named, and theoretically, however

generic groups may be subsequently divided to suit views or to meet

systems, the primitive generic type is assumed to retain the primitive

generic name. It is much to be doubted whether, in every case, the type

is the true pattern, or leader, or centre of the group called the genus;

nor is it likely if genera be natural groups. It has usually been

accident which has dropped upon the favoured species, and not a

well-calculated and thoroughly digested selection, and which, although

accepted, will require emendation or change if the whole collective

series should ever be obtained.

It is the necessary result of the imperfection of our intellect, and one

of the dominant conditions of overruling time, that one thing must

follow the other. It is, therefore, neither an expressed nor even an

implied inferiority that puts one species before the other in a generic

group; or one genus before the other in their successive order.

Affinities may lead both species and genera in varying directions,

although treated descriptively as of linear succession, in which order

they are usually arranged, but this is unavoidable and therefore not

derogatory. It is for the mind to conceive their radiation from a type,

or their parallelism with other forms, even in the connection of

affinity, and not merely of analogy, for the latter can be expressed

even in arrangement.

Thus encouragement attends the beginner at the very outset of his study,

and the prospect of a wide field for discoveries, in all directions,

lies open to him.

The FAMILY, after the GENUS, is the next natural group at which we

arrive, proceeding synthetically. Its characters, succeeding to those of

the ORDER, group together collectively the largest numbers of forms that

in their several combinations are the most nearly equivalents, and may

be almost paralleled in that quality to the alliance of species.

Ascending from species, the naturalist scarcely hopes to find in the

groups formed above them strict parallelism, although, to be logical, it

should be so, and, where the combinations are most natural, it is most

nearly so. Thus we do not again distinctly reach equivalents until we

arrive at these families, which from linking together associations

usually combined by an identity of instinct and functions, attach to

themselves greater interest, and form alliances pointed out by the

finger of nature itself, which are therefore exempted from the arbitrary

caprice of the constructive systematist.

It does not follow that families should be even nearly numerically

equivalent, for a family may contain a few or a multitude of genera and

species, or a multitude of genera and few species, or also a multitude

of species and few genera. Families comprise groups of forms to which

nature delegates the execution of certain duties and offices, and

whether specifically numerous or few, we may assume they are sufficient

for the object intended. If we can reach the motive that controls the

peculiarities of the group, it is a golden key to the explanation of the

structure of its constituents, and, perhaps might furnish us, if not

with a positive clue, yet with a surmise as to the functions of the

collateral groups of which it forms a member, and which diligent

observation may accurately determine.

Families, to be natural divisions, should stand in the same relationship

to genera as species do, but from the opposite side, whatever the

subdivisions are into which they may be separated, for the sake of

convenience, and as descending grades whereby to arrive with greater

facility at their genera, just as the species of the latter are also

sometimes grouped, that they may be reached with greater ease. These

subdivisions of families have no analogy with the varieties which

species occasionally throw off, although they may be as irregular in

their occurrence; that is to say, in the association of a group of

families arranged in their series of most proximate affinities, the

first may present subdivisions, others, in irregular occurrence, may not

require them,—just as in the species of a genus, arranged also in the

series of their closest resemblances, one will present a stringent

adherence to the specific type, or all may do so, or all or some may

have a tendency to vary. Groupings of species are, however, of a less

natural character usually than are those of families, and generally are

artificial, being capriciously made to break down long genera, that the

required species may be more readily arrived at.

The characters which group families differ _inter se_. Thus in the Order

_Hymenoptera_, the family of the bees is essentially framed upon their

most distinguishing peculiarity—the tongue,—which in other families

becomes of secondary importance. In some the neuration of the wings,

their mode of folding, the form of the eyes, conjunctively with other

peculiarities of general structure, etc. etc., which point to the

differences in the economy that accompany all these, have successively

the same prominent position which the trophi take in the family of the

bees.

I have already recently alluded to the relations of affinity and

analogy, and it is desirable that some notion of the meaning and bearing

of these terms should be given, as, in the majority of modern works on

natural history, use is frequently made of them.

On carefully surveying any class or order of creatures, the mind

speedily becomes impressed by observing certain similitudes out of the

direct line of continuous connection, and therefore remote from the

strongest connecting links of positive relationship in the methodical

series. Induced thence to inspect them more closely, we presently

ascertain that what we at first conceived might be an error in their

collocation, arises from very strong resemblances in certain particular

features, but which are less important than those which directly unite

them, and may not be permitted to interrupt the order established. It

is, however, equally evident that they indicate relations which may not

be neglected.

Thus, although the succession be direct in the evolution of its primary

characteristics, the prominent features which so present themselves

establish the conviction of the existence of connections oblique to the

straight line, but all embraced within the normal conditions which bind

the group together. These are called relations of affinity. Pursuing

them, it is sometimes observed that nature, as it were, returns upon

itself, reproducing similar notes in another key.

These indications have led philosophical naturalists to surmise that the

true arrangement of natural objects is in groups, and not in a straight

and continuous line.

Several schemes have been suggested for the purpose of giving uniformity

to these groups, making them equivalents by associating together the

same numbers of allied forms, which again return in a circular series

upon themselves, and impinge upon other circles at the parallel points

of their circumference by affinities less direct than those which unite

them within their own circle.

Many novel views and interesting combinations have been thus elicited,

showing that very strong affinities lie in very divergent directions,

but no system has been hitherto devised which overrules the conflicting

difficulties that attend these arrangements. Whatever number may have

been adopted to bring nature within this circular system, it has always

been found that some, or several members, both in the circles

themselves, or in their series, is as yet deficient, and awaits either

discovery or creation.

The pursuit of such views stimulates profound investigation, and may

lead to valuable discoveries that will eventually give a loftier and

more philosophical character to the study of natural history than it has

hitherto possessed, and make it an attraction to the highest class of

mental powers. The key to the universe hangs at the girdle of the veiled

goddess; and happy the student who shall achieve possession of it, and

unlock the mysteries to the reverential gaze of mankind.

The _relation of analogy_ is different in _kind_, although the general

affinities which bind a class together are necessarily affinities in the

widest construction of the term; but the class being resolved into its

elements, those affinities, thus dissevered, no longer retain the

uniting links whereby the mass coheres. They, more correctly, stream

from their origin in parallelisms rather than in a continuous and

uninterrupted current; and these parallelisms present resemblances often

of a merely superficial character. As strong an instance as I can adduce

is possibly the analogical parallelism of the _Pentamera_ and the

_Heteromera_ in the _Coleoptera_, which are, however, bound by the

common affinity of being all beetles.

It is, nevertheless, often difficult to determine between the

relationships of affinity and analogy, for groups even in close

contiguity may also possess both. Thus, the normal _Ichneumones_ have

their analogues in the _Ichneumones adsciti_, if the comparison be

restricted to themselves, but these revert into the relationship of

affinity when a comparison is instituted between them and the adjacent

groups on the one side of the _Tenthredines_, or on the other of the

_Aculeata_, with which, when a relationship presents itself, it is

merely one of analogy. So, also, within the pentamerous _Coleoptera_ we

have a relationship of analogy between the _Staphylinidæ_ and the

_Histeridæ_, but it becomes one of affinity when it unites them within

this section of the class.

Innumerable other instances might be given readily, but these will

suffice to convey a notion of the relative meanings of the terms,

‘relation of affinity’ and ‘relation of analogy,’ which is all here

aimed at.

The problem naturalists have to solve is, “What is the natural system?”

We can clearly see that the systems adopted are not Nature’s, that they

are essentially imperfect, and that the science, even with all the force

of the intelligence that has been applied to it, is far from having

attained perfection. It still awaits the master mind that shall cope

with its difficulties, determine its intricacies, and, threading the

labyrinth, guide his enthusiastic disciples into the adytum of the

temple.

The subjects here brought under view admit of very considerable

development, and of strictly didactic and methodical treatment. It has

been my object only to gossip upon them, that I might stimulate

curiosity to undertake systematic study, by showing how interesting it

may become if earnestly pursued, being so fraught with instruction of

large compass.

Works on natural history have divers objects in view, and may be

intended either for popular and general distribution, or for special

scientific purposes, and in each case the mode of treatment will

materially differ. Many purposes may also be intended to be severally

met in the strictly and rigidly scientific treatment. They may be either

general methodical arrangements treated superficially, having no other

design than to give a sort of bird’s-eye view of the subject in its

wider distributions and broader landmarks, or they may treat of portions

of the large subject more specially; again, they may constitute

monographs of varying extent from a family to a genus; or they may

comprise loose descriptions of new species of old and well-established

genera; and some such, conjunctively with new species, establish

likewise new genera, indicating, at the same time, their proximate

position in the general series. The two latter classes are usually the

appendages to voyages and travels in distant unexplored countries, or

are the result of a careful collection of neglected tribes at home.

Each, thus, with its special application has its special construction;

but in the case of new species, I would strenuously counsel a full and

complete description, and urge as imperative the construction of a

specific character, formally framed to meet the condition of the

science, based upon the precise antecedents and existing state of the

genus to which such species belong.

Even assuming that the knowledge of species is the essential foundation

of the science, the preceding observations show that there is a higher

knowledge connected with the pursuit than this mere knowledge of

species, and yet from which it emanates. There is a higher object to be

achieved than the accumulation of a store of them, arranged in seemly

order, set with manifest taste, and named in accordance with the

accepted nomenclature. These are extremely pleasing to the eye, but the

intellect languishes over them in unsatisfied desire, craving more solid

aliment. There is besides room for observation on every side, either

confirmatory or original, and both are much needed, and must be

considerably augmented before it is accumulated in satisfactory

abundance; and until this be procured, existing systems can be viewed

merely as temporarily useful, for until all that nature can teach shall

be exhausted, perfection cannot be attained.

The many kinds of knowledge which the study subserves, and the

recreation and pleasure each affords, are a sufficient reply to the

sneering _Cui bono?_ of its detractors, who, when they urge that it

occupies time which might be more profitably employed, present

themselves but as the priests of the Fetish of the age, and may be told

that we use it only as a relaxation to necessary worldly toils. When

pursued, in cases where it can be so, in unmolested security, is there a

more salutary pursuit than that which inculcates the high veneration and

love which the study of nature should inspire towards the Great Parent

of all? What can compete with it in other studies? The investigation of

the works of the Almighty lead directly to the steps of the altar of

religion, and there we find the study of the Works confirmed by the

precepts of the Word, both inculcating humble reverence and fervent

love. Thus pursued, is it not a reply to every cavil?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER VII

BRIEF NOTICE OF THE SCIENTIFIC CULTIVATION OF BRITISH BEES.

WITH the great JOHN RAY dawns the scientific cultivation of British

bees. Before his time, the only entomological work which had been

published in England was Dr. Mouffett’s ‘Theatrum Insectorum.’ In this

work there is an ample account of the domestic bee, with gleanings from

many sources of some of its habits and economy, but there is no notice

of any insects, excepting some species of the genus _Bombus_, which may

be at all consorted with the social bee by affinities of structure or

identity of function.

In Ray’s correspondence with his disciples and friends, we have

straggling observations upon the habits of a few wild bees, especially

some jotted down by his diligent pupil, the distinguished Francis

Willughby. It is in Ray’s posthumous ‘Historia Insectorum,’ published in

1710, at the instance of the Royal Society, that we first find collected

together all that had been previously known of ‘British Bees.’ In that

work he describes them systematically. He there arranges the bees into

_Apis_ and _Bombylius_, which may be regarded almost as genera.

He divides _Apis_ into what may be considered as two sections, _Apis

domestica_ forming the first, and the second containing his _Apes

silvestres_, or wild bees. Nine of these are described and numbered

consecutively, which are followed by eleven descriptions unnumbered,

some of the latter having been supplied to him by Francis Willughby,

whose initials are attached to these, and amongst which we find the

description of the willow bee, subsequently, from this cause, named by

Kirby, from its original describer, and now universally known as

_Megachile Willughbiella_.

Ray’s second genus is _Bombylius_, identical, as far as it goes, with

the modern genus _Bombus_, excepting that it includes an _Anthophora_.

He here describes nineteen, all numbered. Ray’s names are phrases, the

mode of describing then prevalent in all the natural sciences, until the

happy introduction of the binomial system by the great genius of natural

history—LINNÆUS. These phrases are almost tantamount to the modern

specific character; but Ray unfortunately attaches no size, yet size

might have lent some aid to their modern determination.

Mr. Kirby was able to identify and introduce into his synonymy only a

few of Ray’s insects, from the defectiveness of the descriptions; the

following embrace all that could be verified:—

No. 1 of the _Apes silvestres_ is our _Anthidium mancatum_; No. 3, the

male of _Anthophora retusa_, the female of which being No. 4 of his

_Bombylii_; No. 4 of the _Apes_ is _Andrena nitida_: these comprise all

of those numbered which could be recognized. The first of the unnumbered

is the male of _Eucera longicornis_; the fourth is _Melecta punctata_;

the sixth is _Colletes fodiens_; the seventh is the male of _Osmia

bicornis_; and the ninth the celebrated _Megachile Willughbiella_.

In _Bombylius_ No. 1 is _Bombus lapidarius_; No. 2, _B. Raiellus_, named

by Mr. Kirby in honour of its great describer; No. 3 is _B. muscorum_;

No. 4 is the female of _Anthophora retusa_, as noticed above; No. 5 is

_Bombus terrestris_, as is also No. 6; No. 7 is the male of _B.

lapidarius_; No. 8 is _B. pratorum_; No. 9 is _B. sylvarum_; No. 10 is

_B. subinterruptus_; No. 11 is _B. hortorum_; No. 13 is _B.

Francillonellus_, and No. 17 is _Apathus Barbutellus_. Thus ten of the

_Apes silvestres_, and six of the _Bombylii_ are unidentified, and those

recognized may be placed correctly, by the aid I give in attaching Mr.

Kirby’s synonymy to the list of species added to each genus below.

Nothing of any moment thence intervened, until the Rev. W. Kirby, of

Barham, in Suffolk, made a careful and earnest collection of the

‘British Bees,’ with a view to their scientific description and

distribution. Stragglers were to be found in many entomological

cabinets, and some of their habits had been observed and recorded by

patient and attentive naturalists; but these collections were small,

very imperfect, and widely dispersed, until Mr. Kirby’s energy and

activity nurtured the idea, and carried it into execution, of bringing

into one focus the scattered notices and vagrant specimens he had seen

about.