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BRITISH BEES.

BRITISH BEES:

A X INTRODUCTION

TO THE STUDY OF THE

NATURAL HISTORY AND ECONOMY OF THE BEES

Indigenous to tire §ritis!j Isles.

W. E. SHUCKARD,

AUTHOR OP 'ESSAY ON THE FOSSORIAL HYMENOPTERA,' 'COLEOPIERA DELI-
NEATED,' 'ELEMENTS OF BRITISH ENTOMOLOGY,' MONOGRAPHS OF
THE ' DORYLID-T3,' ' AULACIDJE,' ETC. ETC. ; AND TRANSLATOR
OF BURMEISTER'S ' MANUAL OF ENTOMOLOGY.'

LONDON:

LOVELL REEVE & CO., o, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GAKDEN.

1866.

J. E. TAYLOR AND CO., PRINTERS.
LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.

TO

WILLIAM WILSON SAUNDERS, ESQ.,

F.B.S., TEEAS. & V.P.L.S., F.Z.S.,

TREASURER OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY,
ETC. ETC. ETC.,

IX TESTIMONY OF THE ABILITY, ZEAL, AND LIBERALITY

WITH WHICH HE CULTIVATES AND PROMOTES

THE SCIENCE OF ENTOMOLOGY;

AND

AS AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MUCH KINDNESS,
EXTENDING OVER MANY YEARS,

jfe Uolume

IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,

BY HIS FAITHFUL SERVANT,

W. E. SHUCKAED.

PREFACE,

A FEW words are necessary explanatory of the course
pursued in the following work, as regards the citation of
authorities.

All the facts recorded without reference to authori-
ties, are the result either of personal observation or of
diligent study, which, from the length of time that has
intervened, have become so blended in my mind that
I can no longer separate their sources. I may, how-
ever, state that observation has, certainly, as often anti-
cipated the perusal of the discoveries of others, as their
record has stimulated direct observation to confirm
them.

The habits of animals, in which instinct is the sole
prompter, are so uniform, that these, once well observed,
may be considered as permanently established. The
slight deviations that have been occasionally noticed, al-
though temporarily infringing, do not abrogate the in-
flexibility of the law which regulates this faculty ; and

Vlll PREFACE.

the descendants inevitably resume the economy of the
ancestor.

The merit that attaches to the discovery of such facts
is due merely to patience and diligence, very common
attributes ; and the repeated mention of the supposed
first observer must, necessarily, in a work of this kind,
which is far from being of a strictly scientific cha-
racter, diminish the interest of the narrative by in-
terrupting its connection, and thus making it an incon-
gruous mosaic. The omission to cite authorities may
also take place without any wish to detract from the
merit of the discoverer, which is patent to all by his own
record in the archives of science.

Before concluding, I wish to express my best thanks
to Thomas Desvignes, Esq., for the kindness and willing-
ness with which he lent me, for the purposes of this
work, my own selection from the Eees of his choice col-
lection of British insects.

I now dismiss the book — truly a labour of love —
with the hope that it will fall into the possession of
many, who may be sufficiently interested in the subject
to induce them to become ardent entomologists, by
showing them within how small a compass much agree-
able instruction lies.

June, 1866.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

PBELIMINABY OBSERVATIONS, COMPBISING GENEEAL EE-
MAEKS UPON THE USES OF BEES IN THE ECONOMY OF
NATUBE, THEIB DIVISION INTO SOCIAL AND SOL1TABY,
AND A NOTICE OF THEIE FAVOUEITE PLANTS ... 1

CHAPTER II.

GENEEAL HISTOEY OF BEES 17

THE EGG 18

THE LAETA 19

THE PUPA 22

THE IMAGO 23

CHAPTER III.

SKETCH OF THE GEOGEAPHY OF THE GENEEA OF BEITISH

BEES 61

CHAPTER IV.

NOTICE OF THE MOEE CONSPICUOUS FOBEIGN GENEEA . . 101

CHAPTER Y.

PARASITES 'OF BEES AND THEIE ENEMIES . . . 109

V.I CONTENTS.

CHAPTER YT.

PAGE

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT . . . 118

CHAPTER Til.

BRIEF NOTICE OF THE SCIENTIFIC CULTIVATION OF BRITISH

BEES 142

CHAPTER VIII.

A NEW ARRANGEMENT OF BRITISH BEES, WITH ITS RA-
TIONALE, AND AN INTRODUCTION TO THE FAMILY, SUB-
FAMILIES, SECTIONS, AND SUBSECTIONS 153

CHAPTER IX.

A TABLE, EXHIBITING A METHOD OF DETERMINING THE

GENERA OF BRITISH BEES WITH FACILITY .... 17<

EASY DISTRIBUTION OF THE BEES 176

CHAPTER X.

THE SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION OF THE
GENERA, WITH LISTS OF OUR NATIVE SPECIES, AND AN
ACCOUNT OF THE HABITS AND ECONOMY OF THE IN-
SECTS, WITH INCIDENTAL OBSERVATIONS SUGGESTED
BY THE SUBJECT 184

ANDRENIDJE (SUBNORMAL BEES) 185

GEN. 1. COLLETES 185

GEN. 2. PROSOPIS 191

GEN. 3. SPHECODES 196

GEN. 4. ANDRENA 200

GEN. 5. CILISSA 211

GEN. 6. HALICTUS 214

GEN. 7. MACROPIS 220

GEN. 8. DASYPODA . 224

CONTENTS. Xlll

PAGE

(NORMAL BEES) 227

SC9PULIPEDES (BRUSH-LEGGED BEES) 227

GEN. 9. PANURGUS ! . 227

GEN. 10. EUCERA 231

GEN. 11. ANTHOPHORA 230

GEN. 12. SAROPODA 242

GEN. 13. CERATINA 245

NUDIPEDES (CUCKOO BEES) 249

GEN. 14. NOMADA 249

GEN. 15. MELECTA .... 25-j

GEN. 16. EPEOLUS 258

GEN 17. STELIS 262

GEN. 18. CCELIOX.YS 265

DASYGASTERS (ARTISAN PEES) 269

GEN. 19. MEGACHILE 269

GEN. 20. ANTHIDIUM 279

GEN. 21. CHELOSTOMA 283

GEN. 22. HERIADES 288

GEN. 23. ANTHOCOPA 290

GEN. 24. OSMIA 294

CENOBITES (SOCIAL BEES) 302

GEN. 25. APATIIUS 302

GEN. 26. BOMBUS 307

GEN. 27. APIS . . 318

INDEX . .... . 363

LIST OF PLATES.

NOTE.— <J signifies male ; ? , female ; "p , neuter.
PLATE I.

1 . Collates Daviesiana, $ ? .
2 (J . Prosopis dilatata.
2 $ . Prosopis signata.
3. Spbecodes gibbus, $ ? .

PLATE II.

1. Andrena fulva, <$ ? .

2. Andrena cineraria, $ ? .

3. Andrena nitida, <J ? .

PLATE III.

1 . Andrena Kosa?, <£ ? .

2. Andrena longipes, $ ? .

3. Andrena cingulata, <$ ? .

PLATE IV.

1. Halictus xanthopus, (J ?.

2. Halictus flavipes, J1 ? .

3. Halictus minutissimus,

PLATE V.

1. Cilissa tricincta, £ ? .

2. Macropis labiata, $ ? .

3. Dasypoda hirtipes, <$ ? .

PLATE VI.

1. Panurgus Banksianus,

2. Eucera longicornis, £ ?

3. Antbophora retusa, £ ?

PLATE VII.

1. Antbophora furcata, <$ ?

2. Saropoda bimaculata,

3. Ceratina cserulea, $ ? .

PLATE VIII.

1. Nomada Goodeniana,

2. Nomada Lathburiana,

3. Nomada sexfasciata, $ ?

XVI

LIST OF PLATES.

PLATE IX.

1. Nomada signata, £ 2 .

2. Nomacla Fabriciann, $ 2 .

3. Nomacla flavoguttata,

c? ?•

PLATE X.

1. Nomada Jacobfese, <£ 2 .

2. Nomacla Soliclaginis, <$ 2

(that marked ^ * should
be 2).

3. Nomacla lateralis, <$ 2 .

PLATE XL

1. Melecta punctata, ^ 2 .

2. Epeolus variegatus, $ 2 .

3. Stelis phpeoptera, <$ 2 .

PLATE XII.

1. Ccelioxys Vectis. <$ 2 .

2. Megachile maritima, £ 2.

3. Megachile argentata, $ 2 .

PLATE XIII.
1. Anthidium nianicatum,

7 O

o + •

2. Chelostoma florisorane,

cf ?.

3. Heriades truncorum, (J ? .

PLATE XIV.

1. Osmia bicolor, <$ 2 .

2. Anthocopa Papaveris,

cJ_?-

3. Osmia leucomelana, ^ 2 .

PLATE XY.

1. Apathus rupestris, $ 2 .
2 (J . Apathus campestris

(the sexual sign to this

should be 2 ) .
2 2 . Apathus vestalis.

3. Bom bus fragrans, 2 .

4. Bombus Soroensis, J

(var. Burrellanus).

PLATE XVI.

1. Bombus Harrisellus, 2 .

2. Bombus Lapponicus, 2 .

3. Bombus sylvarum, 2 .

4. Apis mellifica, <$ 2 ° .

BRITISH BEES.

(HYMENOPTEEA.)

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS,

COMPRISING GENERAL EEMAEKS UPON THE USES OF BEES IN THE
ECONOMY OP NATUEE ; THEIE DIVISION INTO SOCIAL AND SOLI-
TARY; AND A NOTICE OP THEIR FAVOURITE PLANTS.

IT is very natural that the "Bee" should interest the
majority of us, so many agreeable and attractive associa-
tions being connected with the name. It is immediately
suggestive of spring, sunshine, and flowers, — meadows
gaily enamelled, green lanes, thy my downs, and fragrant
heaths. It speaks of industry, forethought, and compe-
tence,— of well-ordered government, and of due but not
degrading subordination. The economy of the hive has
been compared by our great poet to the polity of a
populous kingdom under monarchical government.

says :—

" Therefore doth Heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion ;

B

Z BKITISH BEES.

To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,

Obedience : for so work the honey bees ;

Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach

The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

They have a king, and officers of sorts :

Where some, like magistrates, correct at home ;

Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad ;

Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,

Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds ;

Which pillage they, with merry march, bring home

To the tent-royal of their emperor :

Who, busied in his majesty, surveys

The singing masons building roofs of gold ;

The civil citizens kneading up the honey ;

The poor mechanick porters crowding in

Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;

The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,

Delivering o'er to executors pale

The lazy yawning drone." — Henry V., 1, 2.

Nothing escaped the wonderful vision of this " myriad -
minded " man, and its pertinent application.

This description, although certainly not technically
accurate, is a superb broad sketch, and shows how well
be was acquainted with the natural history and habits of
the domestic bee.

The curiosity bees have attracted from time imme-
morial, and the wonders of their economy elicited by the
observation and study of modern investigators, is but a
grateful return for the benefits derived to man from
their persevering assiduity and skill. It is the just
homage of reason to perfect instinct running closely
parallel to its own wonderful attributes. Indeed, so
complex are many of the operations of this instinct, as
to have induced the surmise of a positive affinity to
reason, instead of its being a mere analogy, working
blindly and without reflection. The felicity of the adap-

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. O

tation of the hexagonal waxen cells, and the skill of the
construction of the comb to their purposes, has occupied
the abstruse calculations of profound mathematicians ;
arid since human ingenuity has devised modes of investi-
gating, unobserved, the various proceedings of the in-
terior of the hive, wonder has grown still greater, and
admiration has reached its climax.

The intimate connection of "Bees" with nature's
elegancies, the Flowers, is an association which links
them agreeably to our regard, for each suggests the
other; their vivacity and music giving animation and
variety to what might otherwise pall by beautiful but
inanimate attractions. When we combine with this the
services bees perform in their eager pursuits, our admi-
ration extends beyond them to their Great Originator,
who, by such apparently small means, accomplishes so
simply yet completely, a most important object of crea-
tion.

That bees were cultivated bv man in the earliest

V

conditions of his existence, possibly whilst his yet
limited family was still occupying the primitive cradle
of the race at Hindoo Koosh, or on the fertile slopes of
the Himalayas, or upon the more distant table-land or
plateau of Thibet, or in the delicious vales of Cashmere,
or wherever it might have been, somewhere widely away
to the east of the Caspian Sea, — is a very probable sup-
position. Accident, furthered by curiosity, would have
early led to the discovery of the stores of honey which
the assiduity of bees had hoarded; — its agreeable savour
would have induced further search, which would have
strengthened the possession by keener observation, and
have led in due course to the fixing them in his imme-
diate vicinity.

B 2

4 BRITISH BEES.

To this remote period, possibly not so early as the
discovery of the treasures of the bee, may be assigned
also the first domestication of the animals useful to man,
many of which are still found in those districts in all
their primitive wildness. The discovery and cultivation
of the cereal plants will also date from this early age.
The domestication of animals has never been satisfac-
torily explained, but all inquiry seems to point to those
regions as the native land, both of them, and of the
graminece, which produce our grain ; for Heinzelmann,
Linnseus's enthusiastic disciple, found there those
grasses still growing wild, which have not been found
elsewhere in a natural state.

Thus, long before the three great branches of the
human race, the Aryan, Sheinitic, and Turonian, took
their divergent courses from the procreative nest which
was to populate the earth, and which Max Miiller pro-
poses to call the Rhematic period, they were already
endowed from their patrimony with the best gifts nature
could present to them; and they were thus fitted, in their
estrangement from their home, with the requirements,
which the vicissitudes thev might have to contend with

• o

in their migrations, most needed. They would even-
tually have settled into varying conditions, differently
modified by time acting conjunctively with climate and
position, until, in the lapse of years, and the changes
the earth has since undergone, the stamp impressed by
these causes, which would have been originally evan-
escent, became indelible. That but one language was
originally theirs, the researches of philology distinctly
prove, by finding a language still more ancient than its
Aryan, Shemitic, and Turonian derivatives. From this
elder language these all spring, their common origin

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. O

being deduced from the analogies extant in each. These
investigations are confirmed by the Scriptural account
that "The whole earth was of one language and of one
speech/' previous to the Flood, and it describes the first
migration as coincident with the subsidence of the
waters.

That violent cataclvsms have since altered the face of

tf

the then existing earth, the records of geological science
amply show; and that some of mankind, in every portion
of the then inhabited world, survived these catastrophes/,
and subsequently perpetuated the varieties of race, may
be inferred from those differences in moral and physical
features which now exist, and which have sometimes
suggested the impossibility of a collective derivation
from one stock. The philological thread, although gene-
rally a mere filament of extreme tenuity, holds all firmly
together.

That animals had been domesticated in a very early
stage of man's existence, we have distinct proof in many
recent geological discoveries, and all these discoveries
show the same animals to have been in every instance
subjugated; thus pointing to a primitive and earlier
domestication in the regions where both were originally
produced. That pasture land was provided for the sus-
tenance of these animals, they being chiefly herbivorous,
is a necessary conclusion. Thence ensues the fair
deduction that phanerogamous, or flower-bearing plants
coexisted, and bees, consequently, necessarily too, — thus
participating reciprocal advantages, they receiving from
these plants sustenance, and giving them fertility.

These islands, under certain modifications, were, pre-
vious to the glacial period, one land with the continent of
Europe; and it was when thus connected that those

6 BRITISH BEES.

many tropical forms of animal life, whose fossil remains
are found embedded in our soil, passed hither. By the
comparatively rapid intervention of geological changes,
some of the lower forms of life went no further than the
first land they reached, and are, consequently, not even
now to be found so far west as Ireland : the migration
appears clearly to have come from the East. Thus,
although we have no direct evidence of the presence of
" bees," yet as insects must have existed here, from the
certainty that the remains of insect-feeding reptiles are
found, as well as those of herbivorous animals, it may be
concluded that "bees" also abounded.

Claiming thus this very high antiquity for man's
nutritive " bee," which was of far earlier utility to him
than the silkworm, whose labours demanded a very ad-
vanced condition of skill and civilization to be made
available; it is perfectly consistent, and indeed needful,
to claim the simultaneous existence of all the bee's
allies. The earliest Shemitic and Aryan records, the
Book of Job, the Vedas, Egyptian sculptures and pa-
pyri, as well as the poems of Homer, confirm the early
cultivation of bees by man for domestic uses ; and
their frequent representation in Egyptian hieroglyphics,
wherein the bee occurs as the symbol of royalty, clearly
shows that their economy, with a monarch at its head,
was known ; a hive, too, being figured, as Sir Gardner
Wilkinson tells us, upon a very ancient tomb at Thebes, is
early evidence of its domestication there, and how early,
even historically, it was brought under the special domi-
nion of mankind. To these particulars I shall have
occasion to refer more fully when the course of my nar-
rative brings me to treat of the geographical distribu-
tion of the "honey bee;" I adduce it now merely to

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 7

intimate how very early, even in the present condition
of the earth, bees were beneficial to mankind, and that,
therefore, the connection may have subsisted, as I have
previously urged, in the remotest and very primitive
ages of the existence of man ; and that imperatively with
them, the entire family of which they form a unit only,
was also created.

In America, where Apis meUifica is of European in-
troduction, swarms of this bee, escaping domestication,
resume their natural condition, and have pressed forward
far into the uncleared wild ; and widely in advance of
the conquering colonist, they have taken their abode in
the primitive, unreclaimed forest. Nor do they remain
stationary, but on, still on, with every successive year,
spreading in every direction ; and thus surely indicating
to the aboriginal red-man the certain, if even slow, ap-
proach of civilization, and the consequent necessity of
his own protective retreat : — a strong instance of the dis-
tributive processes of nature. It clearly shows how the
wild bees may have similarly migrated in all directions
from the centre of their origin. That they are now
found at the very ultima Thule, so far away from their
assumed incunabula, and with such apparent existing
obstructions to their distributive progress, is a proof, had
we no other, that the condition of the earth must have
been geographically very different at the period of their
beginning, and that vast geological changes have, since
then, altered its physical features. Where islands now
exist, these must then have formed portions of widely
sweeping continents; and seas have been dry land, which
have since swept over the same area, insulating irregular
portions by the submergence of irregular intervals, and
thus have left them in their present condition, with

8 BRITISH BEES.

their then existing inhabitants restricted to the circuit
they now occupy. That long periods of time must
necessarily have elapsed to have effected this by the
methods we still see in operation, is no proof that it has
not been. Nature, in her large operations, has no
regard for the duration of time. Her courses are so
sure that they are ever eventually successful ; for, as to
her, whose permanency is not computable, it matters not
what period the process takes ; and she is as indifferent
to the seconds of time whereby man's brevity is spanned,
as she is to the wastefulness of her own exuberant re-
sources, knowing that neither is lost to the result at
which she reaches. Consuming the one, and scattering
broadcast the other, but in unnoticeable infinitesimals,
she does it irrespective of the origin, the needs, or the
duration of man, who can only watch her irrepressible
advances by transmitting from generation to generation
the record of his observations ; marking thus by imagi-
nary stations the course of the incessant stream which
carries him upon its surface.

That other bees are found besides the social bees, may
be new to some of my readers, who will perhaps now
learn, for the first time, that collective similarities of
organization and habits associate other insects with
" the bee" as bees. Although the names "domestic
bee," " honey bee," or " social bee," imply a contra-
distinction to some other " bee," yet it must have been
very long before even the most acute observers could
have noticed the peculiarities of structure which consti-
tute other insects " bees," and ally the " wild bees " to
the " domestic bee," from the deficiency of artificial
means to examine minutely the organization whereby the
affinity is clearly proved. This is also further shown in

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

the poverty of our language in vernacular terms to express
them distinctively: for even the name of "wild bees,"

« *

in as far as it has been applied to any except the " honey
bee " in a wildered state, is a usage of modern introduc-
tion, and of date subsequent to their examination and
appreciation. Our native tongue, in the words "bee,"
"wasp," "fly," and "ant," compasses all those thou-
sands of different winged and unwinged insects, which
modern science comprises in the two very extensive
Orders in entomology of the Hymenoptera and the Di-
ptera ; — thus exhibiting how very poor common language
is in words to note distinctive differences in creatures,
even where the differences are so marked, and the habits
so dissimilar, as in the several groups constituting these
Orders. But progressively extending knowledge, and a
more familiar intimacy Avith insects and their habits,
will doubtless, in the course of time, supervene, as old
aversions, prejudices, and superstitions wear out, when
by the light of instruction we shall gradually arouse to
perceive that "His breath has passed that way too;"
and that, therefore, they all put forth strong claims to
the notice and admiration of man.

It is highly improbable that ordinary language will
ever find distinctive names to indicate genera, and far
less species : and although we have some few words
Avhich combine large groups, such as " gnats," " flesh-
flies," "gad-flies," "gall-flies," "dragon-flies," "sand
wasps," " humble bees," etc. etc. ; and, although the
small group, it is my purpose in the following pages to
show in all their attractive peculiarities, has had several
vernacular denominations applied to them to indicate
their most distinctive characteristics, such as "cuckoo
bees," "carpenter bees," "mason bees/' "carding bees,"

10 BRITISH BEES.

etc., yet many which are not thus to be distinguished,
will have to wait long for their special appellation.

The first breathings of spring bring forth the bees.
Before the hedge-rows and the trees have burst their
buds, and expanded their yet delicate green leaves to
the strengthening influence of the air, and whilst only
here and there the white blossoms of the blackthorn
sparkle around, and patches of duckweed spread their
bloom in attractive humility on waste bits of ground in
corners of fields, — they are abroad. Their hum will be
heard in some very favoured sunny nook, \vhere the
precocious primrose spreads forth its delicate pale blos-
som, in the modest confidence of conscious beauty, to
catch the eye of the sun, as well as —

" Daffodils, that coine before the swallow dares,
And take the winds of March with beauty." — Shakspeare.

The yellow catkins of the sallow, too, are already
swarmed around by bees, the latter being our northern
representative of the palm which heralded " peace to
earth and goodwill to man." The bees thus announce
that the business of the year has begun, and that the
lethargy of winter is superseded by energetic activity.

The instinctive impulse of the cares of maternity
prompt the wild bees to their early assiduity, urging
them to their eager quest of these foremost indicators
of the renewed year. The firstling bees are forthwith
at their earnest work of collecting honey and pollen,
which, kneaded into a paste, are to become both the
cradle and the sustenance of their future progeny.

Wherever we investigate wonderful Nature, we observe
the most beautiful adaptations and arrangements, —
everywhere the correlations of structure with function ;

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 11

in confirmation of which I may here briefly notice in
anticipation, that the bees are divided into two large
groups, — the short-tongued and the long-tongued,—
and it is the short-tongued, — some of the Andrenidte,—
which are the first abroad : the corollse of the first
flowers being shallow and the nectar depositories obvious,
an arrangement which facilitates their obtaining with
facility the honey already at hand. These bees are also
amply furnished, — as will be afterwards explained, — in the
clothing of their posterior legs, or otherwise, with the
means to convey home the pollen which they vigorously
collect, finding it already in superfluous abundance, and
which, being borne from flower to flower, impregnates and
makes fruitful those plants which require external agents
to accomplish their fertility. Thus nature duly provides,
by an interchange of offices, for the general good, and
by simple, although sometimes obscure means, gives
motion and persistency to the wheel within wheel which
so exquisitely fulfil her designs, and roll forward, unre-
mittingly, her stupendous fabric.

The way in which the bees execute this object and
design of nature, and to which they, more evidently than
any other insects, are called to the performance, is shown
in the implanted instinct which prompts them to seek
flowers, knowing, by means of that instinct, that flowers
will furnish them with what is needful both for their
own sustenance, and for that of their descendants.
Flowers, to this end, are furnished with the requisite
attractive qualifications to allure the bees. Whether
their odour or their colour be the tempting vehicle, or
both conjunctively, it is scarcely possible to say, but
that they should hold out special invitation is requisite
to the maintenance of their own perpetuity. This, it is

12 BRITISH BEES.

supposed, the colour of flowers chiefly effects by being
visible from a distance. Flowers, within themselves, in-
dicate to the bees visiting them the presence of nectaria
by spots coloured differently from their petals. This
nectar, converted by bees into honey, is secreted by
glands or glaudulous surfaces, seated upon the organs
of fructification ; and nature has also furnished means
to protect these depositories of honey for the bees, from
the intrusive action of the rain, which might wash the
sweet secretion away. To this end it has clothed the
corollse with a surface of minute hairs, which effectually
secures them from its obtrusive action, and thus displays
the importance it attaches to the co-operation of the
bees. That bees should vary considerably in size, is a
further accommodation of nature to promote the ferti-
lization of flowers, which, in some cases, small insects
could not accomplish. Many plants could not be per-
petuated, but for the agency of insects, and especially
of bees ; and it is remarkable that it is chiefly those
which require the aid of this intervention that have a
nectarium, and secrete honey. By thus seeking the
honey, and obtaining it in a variety of ways, bees accom-
plish this great object of nature. It often, also, happens
that flowers which even contain within themselves the
means of ready fructification cannot derive it from the
pollen of their own anthers, but require that the pollen
should be conveyed to them from the anthers of younger
flowers; in some cases the reverse takes place, as for
instance, in the Euphorbia Cyparissias, wherein it is
the pollen of the older flower which, through the same
agency, fertilizes the younger. Although many flowers
are night-flowers, yet the very large majority expand
during the day; but to meet the requirements of those

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 13

which bloom merely at night, nature has provided means
by the many moths which fly only at that time, and
thus accomplish what the bees perform under the eye of
the sun. Here insects are again subservient to the ac-
complishment of this great act; for the petals of even the
flowers which open in the night only are usually highly
coloured, or where this not the case, they then emit a
powerful odour, both being means to attract the re-
quired co-operation. But of course our clients have
nothing to do with these night-blooming flowers, as I
am not aware of a single instance of a night-flying bee ;
nor are they on the wing very late in the evening,
being before sunset, already in their nidus. In those
occasional cases where the nectarium of the flower is
not perceptible, if the spur of such a flower which usu-
ally becomes the depository of the nectar that has oozed
from the capsules secreting it, be too narrow for the en-
trance of the bee, and even beyond the reach of its long
tongue, it contrives to attain its object by biting a hole
on the outside, through which it taps the store. The
skill of bees in finding the honey, even when it is much
withdrawn from notice, is a manifest indication of
the prompting instinct which tells them where to seek
it, and is a matter of extreme interest to the observer,
for the honey-marks — the maculae indicantes — surely
guide them ; and where these, as in some flowers, are
placed in a circle upon its bosom, as the mark upon
that of Imogen, who had—

" On her left breast

A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I' the bottom of a cowslip." — Shakspeare.

they work their way around, lapping the nectar as

14 BRITISH BEES.

they go. To facilitate this fecundation of plants, which
is Nature's prime object, bees are usually more or less
hairy ; so that if even they limit themselves to imbibing
nectar, they involuntarily fulfil the greater design by
conveying the pollen from flower to flower. To many
insects, especially flies, some flowers are a fatal attrac-
tion, for their viscous secretions often make these insects
prisoners, and thus destroy them. To the bees this
rarely or never happens, either by reason of their supe-
rior strength, or possibly from the instinct which repels
them from visiting flowers which exude so clammy a sub-
stance. It is probably only to the end of promoting
fertilization by the attraction of insects that the struc-
ture of those flowers which secrete nectar is exclusively
conducive, and which fully and satisfactorily explains
the final cause of this organization.

To detect these things, it is requisite to observe
nature out of doors, — an occupation which has its own
rich reward in the health and cheerfulness its promotes, — •
and there to watch patiently and attentively. It is only
by unremitting perseverance, diligence, and assiduity
that we can hope to explore the interesting habits and
peculiar industries of these, although small, yet very
attractive insects.

Amongst the early blossoming flowers most in request
with the bees, and which therefore seem to be great
favourites, we find the chickweed (Alsine media), the
primrose, and the catkins of the sallow ; and these in
succession are followed by all the flowers of the spring,
summer, and autumn. Their greatest favourites would
appear to be the Amentacece, or catkin-bearing shrubs and
trees, the willow, hazel, osier, etc., from the male flowers
of which they obtain the pollen, and from the female

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 15

the honey; all the Rosaceai, especially the dog-rose, and
PrimulaceeS) the Orchidete, Caryophyllaccce, Polyffoneee,
and the balsamic lilies; clover is very attractive to them,
as are also tares ; and the spots on those leaves of the
bean which appear before the flower, and exude a sweet
secretion ; also the flowers of all the cabbage tribe. Be-
neath the shade of the lime, when in flower, may be heard
above one intense hum of thrifty industry. The blos-
soms of all the fruit-trees and shrubs, standard or Avail,
and all aromatic plants are highly agreeable to them,
such as lavender, lemon-thyme, mignonette, indeed all
the resedas ; also sage, borage, etc. etc. ; but the especial
favourites of particular genera and species I shall have
occasion subsequently to notice in their series ; but to
mention separately all the flowers they frequent would be
to compile almost a complete flora. Bees are also en-
dowed with an instinct that teaches them to avoid cer-
tain plants that might be dangerous to them. Thus,
they neither frequent the oleander (Nerium Oleander]
nor the crown imperial (Fritillaria imperialis], and
they also avoid the Eanunculacece, on account of some
poisonous property ; and although the Melianthns major
drops with honey, it is not sought. It is a native of the
Cape of Good Hope, and may be attractive only to the
bees indigenous to the country, which is also the case
with other greenhouse plants equally rich in honey, but
which not being natives, possibly from that cause the
instincts of native insects have no affinity with them.

Bees may be further consorted with flowers by the
analogy and parallelism of their stages of existence.
Thus, the egg is the equivalent to the seed ; the larva
to the germination and growth ; the pupa to the bud ;
and the imago to the flower. The flower dies as soon

16 BRITISH BEES.

as the seed is fully formed, which is then disseminated by
many wonderful contrivances to a propitious soil; and
the wild bees die as soon as the store of eggs is as won-
derfully deposited, according to their several instincts,
in fitting receptacles, and provision furnished to sustain
the development of the progeny. Thus, each secures
perpetuity to its species, but individually ceases ; whereas
the unfecundated plant and the celibate insect may, se-
verally, prolong for a short but indefinite period, a brief
existence, to terminate in total extinction. Nature thus
vindicates her rights, for nothing remains sterile with
impunity.

17

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL HISTOEY OF BEES.

THE E(JG. — THE LAKVA. — THE PTJPA. — THE IMAGO.

ALTHOUGH the preceding pages have been written
upon the assumption that the reader knows what a bee
is, now that we are gradually approaching the more
special and technical portion of the subject it will be
desirable to conform a little to the ordinary usages of
scientific treatment.

The bees constitute a family of the order Hymeno-
ptera, viz. insects ordinarily, but in the case of bees
always, with four transparent wings, which are variously
but partially traversed longitudinally and transversely
with threads, called nervures, supposed to be tubular,
the relative position of which, together with the areas
they enclose, called cells, help to give characters to the
genera.

Most of the Hymenoptera further possess some kind
of an ovipositor, — of course restricted to the females, —
varying considerably in the different families. This is
sometimes external, but is often seated within the apex
of the abdomen, whence it can be protruded for the
purpose of depositing the egg in its right nidus. In
our insect this organ is converted into a weapon of de-

c

18 BRITISH BEES.

fence and offence, and forms a sting, supplied by glands
with a very virulent poison, which the bee can inject
into the wound it inflicts. It is not certain that this
organ is used by the bee as an ovipositor, although it
is evident it is its analogue. This brief description of
the essential peculiarities of the family will, for the pre-
sent, suffice. In the notice of the imago, I shall enlarge
upon the general structure, and then particularize those
portions of it which may facilitate further progress.

The Egg. — Although the egg of the parent is the
source of the origin of the bee, we cannot abruptly com-
mence from this point, for the preliminary labours of
the mother are indispensable to the evolution of its off-
spring. This egg has to be placed in a suitable deposi-
tory, together with the requisite food for the sustenance
of the vermicule that will be disclosed from it.

Instinct instructs the parent where and how to form
the nidus for its egg. These depositories differ consi-
derably in the several genera, but, as a general rule,
they are tubes burrowed by the mother either in earth,
saud, decaying or soft wood, branches of plants having
a pith, the halm of grain, cavities already existing in
many substances, and even within the shells of dead
snails. These perforations are sometimes simple, and
sometimes they have divergent and ramifying channels,
Sometimes they are carefully lined with a silky mem-
brane secreted by the insect, and sometimes they are
hung with a tapestry of pieces of leaves, cut methodi-
cally from plants, but some leave their walls entirely
bare. All these particulars I shall have ample oppor-
tunity to note in the special descriptions of the genera.
I merely indicate them to show how various are the
receptacles for the offspring of our bees.

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 19

Before the egg is placed within its nidus, this is sup-
plied with the requisite quantity of food needful for the
support of the young to the full period of its maturity.
The receptacle is then closed, and the same process is
repeated again and again until the parent has laid her
whole store of eggs. In other cases one tube,
or its ramification, contains but one egg. These
eggs are usually oblong, slightly curved, and ta-
pering at one extremity ; they vary in size ac- Fi j
cording to the species, but are never, however, The Egg.
above a line in length, and sometimes they are very
minute. When the stock of the mother bee is exhausted
she leaves them to the careful nursing of nature, and the
young is speedily evolved. She then wanders forth;
time has brought senility ; her occupation has gone ;
and she passes away; but her progeny survive to per-
petuate the continual chain of existence.

The Larva. — The temperature of the perforated tube
wherein the egg is deposited must necessarily be higher
and more equal than that of the external atmosphere,
being secluded from its vicissitudes. The egg is soon
hatched, and the larva emerges from its shell to feed
ravenously upon the sustenance stored up for its supply.
This consists of an admixture of pollen and honey formed
into a paste, the quantities varying according to the
size of the species. By some species it is formed into
little balls ; by others, it is heaped irregularly at the
bottom of the cell. In the case of Andrena the quan-
tity stored is of about the size of a pea. That it must
be exceeding nutritious may be inferred from its very
nature, consisting, as it does, of the virile, energetic,
and fertilizing powder of plants, — the concentration of
their living principle. It is strictly analogous to the

c 2

20 BRITISH BEES.

fecundating property of the semen in animals, and, like
them, produces spermatozoa, a fact corroborated by the
researches of Robert Brown, Mirbel, and other dis-
tinguished vegetable physiologists.*

We are told that the cells of Hylceus, or Prosopis, and
of Ceratina are supplied with a semifluid honey. It is
very doubtful if Hyl&us collects its own store, but that
Ceratina does I have the authority of an exact observer
(Mr. Thwaites) to verify it, for he has caught this in-
sect with pollen on its posterior legs, which the long
hair covering the tibia is intended for. What may be
the nature of this semifluid honey ? It is questionable
if the larva could be nurtured upon honey alone with-
out the admixture of pollen, thus contradicting analogies
presumable from ample verification in nature's processes.
How, too, does it become semifluid ? It is the property
of honey, at a certain temperature, to be very fluid, and
this is doubtless the temperature that prevails within
the receptacle of the larva during the time of the opera-
tions of the bees.

Its semifluid consistency could then apparently be
produced only by some more solid admixture, which, if
not of pollen, of what can it be ? This, even in small
quantities, might, upon the bursting of its vesicles, have
the power of thickening the fluent honey to the neces-
sary consistency.

But a bee without polliniferous organs cannot collect
pollen, and the instance of the hive bee, which collects
honey in superabundance, feeding its larva with the bee-

* Might not, by parity of inference, the milt of fishes, such as the
herring, mackerel, etc., be a useful food in cases of consumption, both
from the iodine necessarily existing in it, and also from its doubtless
nutritive nature ?

GENERAL HISTORY OP BEES.

21

bread, must inevitably lead to the conclusion that the
larvae of bees require more than honey for their suste-
nance. Nature is not usually wantonly wasteful of its
resources, and if honey sufficed for the nurture of the
grub, so much pollen would not be abstracted from its
legitimate purpose, nor would bees have this double
trouble given to them. By the admixture of pollen the
honey has energetic power infused into it by the sper-
matozoa which that contains. But it must necessarily
be collected, for I never observed, nor have I seen re-
corded, any instance of the pollen being eaten on the
flower and regurgitated into the cell in combination
with the imbibed honey.

Pollen is eaten by the domestic bee and humble-bee
to form wax for the structure of their cells, but the so-
litary bees do not themselves consume it.

The larva, when excluded from the egg, is a fleshy

I

a.

Fig. 2. — a, the Larva, when growing ; 6, when preparing to change ;
c, the head, viewed in front.

grub, slightly curved, and a little pointed at each extre-
mity. Its body is transversely constricted, the con-
strictions corresponding with its fifteen segments, each
of which, excepting the head and four terminal ones, is
supplied with a spiracle placed at the sides, whereby it
breathes ; and it has no feet. These segments have on
each side a series of small tubercles, which facilitate the
restricted motions of the grub, confined to the bounda-

22

BRITISH BEES.

ries of its cell. Its small head, which is smooth above,
has a little projecting horn on each side representing
the future antennse. The small lateral jaws articulate
beneath a narrow labrum or lip, which folds down over
them. To prove that the food provided requires still
further comminution, these jaws are incessantly masti-
cating it. The form of these jaws approximates to that
of the insect which it will produce, being toothed and
broad at the apex in the artisan and wood-boring bees,
and simple in those which burrow in softer substances.
On each side beneath these jaws there is an appendage,
rather plump, having a setiform process at its extremity,
and beneath these, in the centre, we observe a fleshy
protuberance which, at its tip, has a smaller perforated
process that emits the viscid liquid with which the grub
spins its cocoon, and which immediately hardens to the
consistency of silk.

Having constructed its cocoon, where the species does
so, — for it is not incidental to all the genera, — and
shrunk to its most compact dimensions, the larva be-
comes transformed into

The Pupa. — This is semi-transparent at first, and

there may be seen
through the thin
pellicle, which inva-
riably clothes every
portion separately,
of the bodv the ri-

V

pening bee, which
lies, like a mummy,
with its wings and

Fig. 3. — a, the pupa, seen beneath; b, seen
above ; r,seen laterally.

legs folded lengthwise along its breast. The parts gra-
dually assume consistency, and the natural colours and

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 23

clothing of the perfect insect display themselves through
its pellucid envelope. When arrived at perfect matu-
rity, and ready to commence the part it has to perform
in the economy of nature, it bursts its cerements,, mak-
ing its way through the dorsal covering of its silken
skin, and, leaving the exuviae behind, it crawls forth
from its dormitory, when, becoming invigorated by the
bracing air and the genial sunshine, it stretches its legs
and expands its wings, and flies forth jubilant, rejoicing
in its awakened faculties.

The Imago. — The bee having attained its majority,
loses no time in quitting the confined abode wherein it
has been hitherto secluded. It comes forth prepared to
undertake the cares, and meet the vicissitudes of exist-
ence. The new life that now opens to it is one appa-
rently teeming exuberantly with every delight. It
dwells in sunshine and amidst flowers ; it revels in their
sweets, attracted by their beautiful colours and their
delightful odours : and the consummation of its bliss is

O *

to find a congenial partner. With him it enjoys a brief
connubial transport, but which is speedily succeeded by
life-long labour, for the cares of maternity immediately
supervene.

I believe the wild bees are not polyandrous, and there-
fore many males, if there be any preponderating dis-
crepancy in favour of that sex, must die celibate. But
the fact of finding the males associated together in great
numbers upon the same flowers or hedges, is certainly
not conclusive of this being the case. To provide a
fitting receptacle, furnished with suitable provision, for
its future progeny, occupies all the subsequent solicitude
of the female.

As frequent reference will hereafter be made to

24 BRITISH BEES.

peculiarities of structure, it will be desirable to take a
rapid survey of the external anatomy of the bee, for it
will enable me to introduce in due order the requisite
technicalities with their local explanations. This course
will be found most subservient to preciseness and accu-
racy, and when mastered, which will be found to be a
very simple affair, it will greatly facilitate exact compre-
hension. No circumlocution can convey what a few
technicalities, thoroughly understood, will immediately
explain^ and no special scientific work can be read with
any profit until they are acquired.

Diagrams are introduced to aid the imagination in its
conception of what is meant to be conveyed.

This necessary detail I shall endeavour to make as
entertaining as I possibly can, by introducing, with the
description of the organ, the uses it serves in the
economy of the insect. 1 hope thus to add an interest
to it which a merely dry technical and scientific defini-
tion would not possess.

Structure is always expressive of the habits of the
bees, and is as sure a line of separation, or means of
combination, as instinct could be were it tangible.
Hence the conclusion always follows with a certainty
that such-and-such a form is identical with such-and-
such habits, and that, in the broad and most distinguish-
ing features of its economy, the genus is essentially the
same in every climate. Climate does not act upon these
lower forms of animal life, with the modifying influences
it exercises upon the mammalia and man. A Megachile
is as essentially a Megachile in all its characteristics in
Arctic America, the Brazils, tropical Africa, Northern
China, and Van Diemen's Land, as in these islands, and
Apis is, wherever it occurs, as truly an Apis. Therefore

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 25

the habits, in whatever country the genus may be found,
can thus be as surely affirmed of all its species, from the
knowledge we have of those at home, as if observation
had industriously tracked them. Therefore, the techni-
calities of structure once learnt, they become perma-
nently and widely useful.

The body of the bee consists of a head, thorax, and ab-
domen, which, although to the casual Q ^p
observer, seemingly not separated S- ''
from each other, are, upon closer <J— ^
inspection, more or less distinctly.
disconnected. The three parts are
merely united by a very short and
slight tubular cylinder. This is
sometimes so much reduced as to
be only a perforation of the parts
combined by a ligament, and Fig. 4.— Body of the bee.

. , . t . . a, head and antenna;; b,

through which aperture a requisite vertex and ocelli ; c, genae,

, , . f i c . , or cheeks ; d, prothorax ;

channel is formed for the passage e mesothorax ; /, squa-
of the ganglion or nervous chord, ^, ^bgto rfflj

which extends from One portion Of scutellum ; k; metathorax ;

,„ /, abdomen.

the body to the other, giving on
laterally, in its progress from the sensorium in the head
onwards, the filaments required by the organs of sensa-
tion and motion, as well as all which control the other
functions of the body of the insect.

These apertures form also the necessary medium of
connection between the several viscera, whereby the food
and other sustaining juices are conveyed from the mouth
through the oesophagus to the various parts of the body.

As this work will impinge but very incidentally upon
the internal organization of the bee, it is unnecessary
to be more explanatory. All that I shall have to notice

26

BRITISH BEES.

here are those portions of the external structure which
have any special bearing upon the economy and habits,
or upon the generic and specific determination of the
insects, and to which therefore I shall specially limit
myself.

The head is the most important segment of the in-
sect's body, if we may elevate to such distinction any

portion, when all conduce to the
same end, and either would be im-
perfect without the other, yet we
may perhaps thus distinguish it from
the rest as it exclusively contains
that higher class of organs, those of
of the sense, which are most essential to

head ot the bee. a, ver-
tex; b, face; c, ocelli or the functions of the creature. The

stemmata ; d, compound •• -. . „ ,

eyes ; e, clypeus ; /, man- head consists or the vertex, or crown ;

*e <,«,«, or cheeks; the face; the
reP°se- clypeus, or nose; the compound eyes ;

the stemmata, or simple eyes; the antenna, or feelers,
and the trophi, or organs of the mouth collectively.

The thorax, the second segment, carries all the organs
of locomotion. It consists of the prothorax or collar,
which carries beneath the anterior pair of legs ; the meso-
thorax, or central division, with which articulate late-
rally above the four wings, the anterior of which have
their base protected by the squamula, or epaulettes, or
wing scales, and beneath it carries the intermediate pair
of legs ; the metathorax, or hinder portion, which has in
the centre above, behind the scutellum, the post-scutel-
lum, and at the extremity of this division just above the
articulation of the posterior legs is attached the last seg-
ment of the insect, — the Abdomen.

The vertex, or crown of the head, is that portion

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 27

which lies between the upper extremities of the com-
pound eyes. Upon the vertex are placed the stemmata,
or ocelli (the simple eyes), in a curve or triangle; they
are three in number, and are small, hyaline, circular
protuberances, each containing within it a lens ; some-
times they occur very far forward upon the face, espe-
cially when the compound lateral eyes meet above, as in
the male domestic bee or drone. The uses of these
simple eyes, from the experiments which have been
made, seem to be for long and distant vision. To test
their function, Reaumur covered them with a very ad-
hesive varnish, which the bee could not remove, and he
then let it escape. He found upon several repeated
trials, that the insect always flew perpendicularly up-
wards, and was lost. Although this was anything but
conclusive as to the uses of these eyes, it would seem
that by losing the vision of this organ, the insect lost
with it all sense of distance.

The compound eyes, seated on each side of the head,
extend from the vertex generally to the articulation of
the mandibles or jaws, their longitudinal axis being per-
pendicular to the station of the insect. They vary in
external shape and convexity in the several species and
genera, although not greatly, and consist of a congeries
of minute, hexagonal, crystalline facets, each slightly
convex externally, and their interstices are sometimes
clothed with a short and delicate pubescence. Each
separate hexagon has its own apparatus of lens and fila-
ment of optic nerve, each having its own distinct vision,
but all converge to convey one object to the sensorium.
The function of the compound eyes is concluded to be
the microscopic sight of near objects.

The face, which sometimes has a longitudinal carina,

28 BRITISH BEES.

or prominent ridge, down its centre, lies between these
eyes, descending from the vertex to the base of the cly-
peus, or nose, but which is without the function of that
organ. This clypeus is sometimes protuberant, and from
shape or armature, characteristic. This part, however, is
not always distinctly apparent, although a line or suture
usually separates it above, from the face. At its lower
extremity the labrum, or upper lip, articulates, over
which it is sometimes produced ; and it extends at each
lateral apex to the base of the insertion of the mandibles.
The gen(B, or cheeks, descend from the vertex laterally,
behind the compound eyes, to the cavity of the head
which contains the lingual apparatus, when folded in re-
pose. These cheeks, at their lower extremity, sometimes
embrace the articulation of the mandibles.

The antennae, or feelers, are two filamentary organs
articulating on each side of the face and above the cly-
peus. They comprise the scape (a), or basal joint, and
(b) the flagelhim or terminal apparatus; the latter con-
sists of closely attached conterminal joints, and usually
forms an elbow with the scape ; collectively these joints
number twelve in the female and thirteen in the male.
They are all of various relative lengths, which sometimes
aid specific determination. The scape, how-
ever, is usually much longer than any of the
1 re&i, and in some males has a very robust and
even angulated shape. A description of the
antennae always enters into the generic charac-
ter ; they usually differ very materially both in
Pig. 6.— i. length and form in the sexes. They are often
Clavate an- filiform (2),butmore generally subclavate (1),

tennae; 2, fi- *

liform ditto; and sometimes distinctly so, and where they

a, scape; b, , ..„,..,

liageiium. have the latter structure it is found m both

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 29

sexes. They constantly differ in the species of a long
genus (Andrena, Normada, Halictus] . In the male of the
genus Eucera, they have a remarkable extension, being as
long as the body, whereas folded back they are rarely
so long, or not longer than the thorax in other males,
speaking in reference only to our native kinds. In
the females they are not often longer than the head. It
is in the males of the genus Halictus that they take the
greatest extension. In the male of the genus Eucera,
we also find the remarkable peculiarity of the integu-
ment of some of the joints being distinctly of an hexa-
gonal structure, — a peculiarity often observable in na-
tural structures. In this case it may refer to the sen-
siferous function of the organ, and to which I shall have
occasion to revert when I speak of the senses of our
insects. We sometimes find the joints of the antennae
moniliform, something like a string of beads, or with
each separate joint forming a curve, or with their ter-
minal one, as in Megachile, greatly compressed.

The relative lengths of the joints often yield conclusive
separative specific characters, and which may be very
advantageously made available, especially where other
distinctive differences are obscure, and in cases where
the practised eye observes a distinction of habit, evi-
dently specific, although it is difficult to seize tangible
characteristics.

The trophi are the organs of the mouth of the bee
collectively. When complete in all the parts, as exem-
plified in the genus A nthoptera, they consist of the labrum,
or upper lip ; the epipharynx, or valve, falling over and
closing the aperture of the gullet; the pharynx, or gullet,
which forms the true mouth and entrance to the oeso-
phagus; the hypopharynx which lies immediately below

30

BRITISH BEES.

the gullet and assists deglutition ; the labium, or lower
lip, and the true tongue. These parts are all single ;
the parts in pairs are the mandibles, the maxillae, the
maxillary palpi, the labial palpi, and the paraglossce.
The labrum, or upper lip, is attached by joint to the

apex of the cly-
peus; it has a ver-
tical motion, and
falls over the or-
1.7 gans beneath it,
in repose, when it
is itself covered
bv the mandibles.

*

It is usually trans-
verse in form, but

Fig. 7.— Troplii and their unfolding, a, labrum ; .

6, epipharynx ; c, pharynx ; d, hypopharynx ; e, man- IS Sometimes
dible;/, maxillae; g, maxillary palpi ; A, mandible; j- nilinr

i, cardium; k, labium ; I, labial palpi ; m, paraglossse ; Pe lr>

n, tongue. cially in the ar-

tisan bees. It takes many forms, sometimes semilunar
or linear, emarginate or entire, convex, concave, or flat,
and is occasionally armed with one or two processes,
like minute teeth projecting from its surface, but of what
use these may be we do not know. In the female of
Halictus, it has a slightly longitudinal appendage in the
centre. It is usually horny, but is sometimes coriaceous
or leathery. This labrum often yields good specific cha-
racters.

The pharynx, or gullet, is a cavity immediately be-
neath the epipharynx, which articulates directly under
the base of the labrum, and which closes the pharynx
from above, and immediately beneath this cavity is
another small appendage, almost triangular, which re-
ceives the food or honey from the canal conveying it

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 31

from the tongue, or directly from the mandibles, when
it is masticated, and helps it forward to the pharynx to
be swallowed. The epi pharynx closes this orifice from
above, the labrum then laps over it and the articulation
of the lingual apparatus, both which are further pro-
tected in repose by the mandibles closing over the la-
brum. This triple protection shows the importance
nature attaches to these organs. The more direct por-
tions of the lingual apparatus are the labium, or lower
lip, which forms the main stem of the rest, and articu-
lates beneath the hypopharynx, and is beneath of a
horny texture ; it forms a knee or articulating bend at
about half its length, and has a second flexure at its
apex, where the true tongue is inserted. This labium is
extensible and retractile at the will of the insect, and
lies inserted within the under cavity of the head when
in complete repose, and the insect can withdraw or
extend a portion or the whole at its pleasure. Attached
on each side, at its first bend or elbow, lie the maxilla,
which, for want of a better term, are called the lower
jaws, and perhaps properly so from the function they
perform; for at the point of their downward flexure,
which occurs at the apex of the labium, and where the
true tongue commences, they each extend forward in a
broad, longitudinal membrane, partly coriaceous through-
out its whole length, and these, folded together and be-
neath, form the under sheath of the whole of the rest of
the lingual apparatus in repose, and often lap over its
immediate base when even it is extended. Externally
continuous, the line of these maxilla is broken at the
point of flexure at the apex of the labium, by a deep
sinus or curve, and within this is inserted the first joint
of the maxillary palpi. The portion of the maxillge

32 BRITISH BEES.

extending forwards, hence takes several forms, usually
tapering to an acute point, but sometimes rounded or
hastate, according to the structure of the tongue, to
which they form a protection.

The maxillary palpi are small, longitudinal joints,
never exceeding six in number, and generally in the
normal or true bees not so numerous. They vary in
relative length to the organ to which they are attached,
and usually progressively decrease in length and size
from the basal ones to the apical, but each joint, except-
ing the terminal one, is generally more robust at its
apex than at its own special base. The function of these
maxillary palpi is unknown. They are always present
in full number in the Andrenidee, and in some few
genera of the true bees, but they vary from their normal
number of six to five, four, three, two, and one in the
latter ; and it is curious that they are most deficient in
those bees having the most complicated economy, as in
the artisan bees and the cenobite bees ; they thus evi-
dently show that it is not a very paramount function
that they perform. On each side, at the apical summit
of the labium, are inserted the labial palpi. These are
invariably four in number, but vary considerably in
length and substance. In the Andrenidce they have
always the form of subclavate, robust joints, and are
usually as long as the tongue, but not always ; they are
only half the length of that organ in the subsection of
the acute-tongued Andrenidee. In the normal bees,
even in the genus Panurgus, which is the most closely
allied to the Andrenid®, the labial palpi immediately
take excessive development, especially in their two basal
joints, and the structure of these two joints, excepting
in this genus and in Nomada, partakes of a flattened form

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 33

and membranous substance. All these four joints are
either conterminal, or the two apical ones, or one of
them is articulated laterally, towards the apex of the
preceding joint. These two are always very short
joints, and are comparatively robust.

The labial palpi are, in the majority of cases, about
half or two-thirds the length of the tongue, but in
Apathus and Apis they are of its full length. At the im-
mediate base of the tongue, and attached to it laterally,
rather than to the apex of the labium, are the paraglossce,
or lingual appendages, which are membranous and acute,
except in the Andrenidce., where, in some, their apex is
lacerated and fringed with short hairs. These organs
are always present in the Andrenidce and generally in
the Apidte, where they usually obtain extensive relative
development; but in the artisan bees they are all but
obsolete, and in Ceratina, Ccelioxys, Apathus, and Apis,
they are not even apparent. Their use also has hitherto
eluded discovery, but that they are not essential to the
honey-gathering instinct of the bee is especially proved
by the latter instance.

The true tongue is attached to the centre of the apex
of the labium, having the paraglossse, when extant, and
the labial palpi at its sides. In the Andrenidce it is a
flat short organ of varying form, either lobatcd, emargi-
nate, acute, or lanceolate ; but in the Apidce, with Panur-
gus it immediately becomes very much elongated, and
with this genus the apparatus whereby the tongue folds
beneath obtains its immediate development; but this
development exhibits itself most fully in the genus An-
thophora. The tongue is usually linear, tapering slightly
to its extremity, and terminating in some genera with a
small knob. It is clothed throughout with a very delicate

D

34

BRITISH BEES.

pubescence, which enables the bee to gather up the nectar
it laps. That it should be called the lip seems an ab-
surdity, for it exercises all the functions of a tongue, and

Fig. 8. — Extremes of structure of tongues : 1, in subnormal bees (Col-
Jetes) ; 2, in normal bees (Antlioplwra). a, tongue; b, paraglossae ; c,
labial palpi ; d, maxillae ; e, maxillary palpi ; /, labium.

it would seem almost that the fine hairs, with which it
is covered, are the papillae of taste. Its structure in
some genera seems to be a spiral thread twining closely
round and round, but in others it appears throughout
identical.

This tongue was formerly thought to be tubular, and
that the bee sucked the honey through an aperture at
its apex. The knowledge of the flat form of the tongues
of other bees should have dissipated the illusion, for we
could have been perfectly sure of the analogical struc-
ture and function of an organ in creatures so nearly
alike. Reaumur's patient observations have totally
dissipated the mistake, and through him we exactly
know how the bee conveys the honey into its stomach

GENEKAL HISTORY OF BEES. 35

As it exhibits an agreeable instance of the persevering
industry and unblenching patience with which he made
his researches, I will give a summary of what he says,
for his bulky volumes, although teeming with delightful
instruction, pleasantly narrated, will necessarily not be
in every entomologist's hand, and where not, not even
always readily accessible. His observations were made
upon the honey-bee, but we may attribute the same
mode of collecting to all the rest. He says : — When
this tongue is not lapping the nectar of flowers but in a
state of perfect repose it is flattened. It is then at
least three times broader than thick, but its edges are
rounded. It gradually narrows from its base to its ex-
tremity. It terminates in a slight inflation, almost
cylindrical, at the end of which there is a little knob,
which appears perforated in the centre. From the cir-
cumference of this knob tolerably long hairs radiate,
and the upper side of the tongue is also entirely covered
with hairs. The basal and widest portion above seems
striated transversely with minute lines closely approach-
ing each other.

The upper side of the anterior portion of the tongue
seems of a cartilaginous substance, but the under side of
the same part appears cartilaginous only over a portion
of its width. The centre is throughout its whole course
more transparent than the rest, and seems membranous
and folded. It is only necessary to press the posterior
portion of this trunk, whilst holding its anterior part
closely to a light, towards which its upper surface must
be turned, and then upon examining its inner surface with
a lens of high power, a drop of liquid may be soon ob-
served at its foremost portion. By continuing to press
it this drop is urged forward, and as it passes every

D 2

36 BRITISH BEES.

portion swells considerably, and the two edges separate
more widely from each other. The under side of the
tongue, which was before flat, rises and swells conside-
rably, and all that thus rises up is evidently membra-
nous. It looks like a long vessel of the most transparent
material. But whilst this great increase of bulk is made
upon the lower surface, the upper surface swells only a
little, which seems to prove that its immediate envelope
is not capable of much distension.

If a bee be observed whilst sipping any sweet liquor,
the anterior portion of its trunk will be sometimes seen
more swollen than when in action, and alternations will
be observed in it of varying expansion.

The posterior portion of the trunk is a great deal
larger than the anterior, and it is only in repose that
the former nearly equals the latter in length. This
posterior portion (this is the portion treated above as
the labium, or under lip) is joined to the anterior by a
very short ligature, wholly fleshy, and very flexible,
which permits the folding of the trunk, and then its
under side is quite scaly, very shiny, and rounded (the
maxillae) . This portion is apparently more substantial
than the rest. Its diameter gradually increases as it
recedes from about the middle to about two-thirds of
its length ; there it is a little constricted, and the first
of the two pieces of which it is composed there termi-
nates. The first piece is rounded, for the purpose, it
would appear, of fitting itself upon another, which
serves as its base and pivot. This base is conical and
of a scaly texture, and terminates in rather an acute
point. It is this point which is articulated at the junc-
tion of the two small elongate portions of which we
spoke at the commencement, and which carry the trunk
forward.

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 37

Iii repose, the posterior part of the trunk lies along
the lower part of the mouth, and the anterior part is
folded back upon it, when it is covered by the maxilla,
which then seem to form a portion of it. It has further
another interior envelope ; these are the two first joints
of the labial palpi (in the Apidae), which are entirely
membranous, and these in repose cling closely to the
tongue laterally.

The bee would certainly not collect its honey diffe-
rently from a flower than it would from a glass wherein
it might be placed to observe the process ; and here it
never appeared to obtain the honey by suction. The bee
was never observed to place the end of its tongue in the
drop of syrup, as it would necessarily do if it were requi-
site to imbibe it through what seems the small aperture at
the extremity of the knob, at the end of the tongue, pre-
viously described. As soon as the bee finds itself near
the spot spread with honey or syrup, it extends its
tongue a line or so beyond the end of the palpi, which
continue to envelope it throughout the rest of its
length. If the honey be spread over the glass, the an-
terior portion of the tongue, which is exposed, is turned
round that its superior surface may be applied to the
glass. There this portion does precisely what the
tongue of any animal would do in lapping a liquid.
This tongue repeatedly rubs the glass, and, moving
about with astonishing rapidity, it makes hundreds of
different inflexions.

If the drop of syrup presented to the bee be thicker, or
if it meet with a drop of honey, it then thrusts the ante-
rior portion of its tongue into the liquid, but apparently
only to use it as a dog might do its tongue in lapping milk
or water. Even in the drop of honey the bee bends the

38 BRITISH BEES.

end of its tongue about, and lengthens and shortens it
successively, and, indeed, withdraws it from moment to
moment. We then observe it not merely lengthen and
shorten this end, but it is also seen to curve it about,
causing from time to time the superior surface to become
concave, — to give, as it were, to the liquid with which
it is loaded a downward inclination towards the head.
In fact, this portion of the trunk appears to act as a
tongue, and not as a pump. Indeed its extremity,
where the aperture for receiving the liquid is assumed
to be, is repeatedly above the surface of the liquid which
the insect is lapping.

By these continuous motions this anterior extremity
of the tongue charges itself with the nectareous fluid,
and conveys it to the mouth. It is along the upper
surface of this pilose tongue that the liquid passes.
The bee strives especially to load and cover it with
honey. In shortening the tongue to the extent, some-
times, of withdrawing it entirely beneath its sheaths, it
conveys and deposits the liquid with which it is charged
within a sort of channel, formed by the upper surface of
the tongue and the sheaths which fold over it. Thus,
these sheaths are, perhaps, less for the purpose of covering
the tongue than to form and cover the channel by which
the liquid is conveyed to the mouth. I have previously
remarked that the trunk can swell and contract ; these
swellings and constrictions are observed to succeed each
other, and may be for the purpose of urging the liquid,
already in transit beneath the sheaths, forward towards
the true mouth. Further, I moved the sheaths aside
from their position above the tongue of a bee which I
held in my fingers, and I succeeded, by means of the
point of a pin, in placing an extremely small drop of

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 39

honey upon the tongue of this bee at a spot where it
could be covered by the extremities of the external
sheath. I then let these sheaths loose. Sometimes they
spontaneously resumed their previous position, and
sometimes I assisted them to resume it. The drop of
honey which they then covered has in no instance re-
turned to the extremity of the tongue ; it has always
passed towards the mouth, and doubtless entered that
orifice itself. It is therefore very certain that the bee
imbibes its honey by lapping, and that it never passes
through the aperture which has been supposed to have
been seen at the extreme apex of the tongue. Did this
aperture really exist, it would be of extreme minuteness,
and it did not appear to me possible that a large drop
of honey, which I have seen imbibed in a very few
instants, could in so short a time have passed by so
minute an opening. A further confirmation of the non-
existence of this orifice has been given me when, by
pressing a tongue towards its origin to compel it to
swell, I have detected the liquid which Andrenidse.
gave it its extension, but all my press-
ing would never make the liquid pass
through the extremity, although the
pressure has sometimes made it almost
rend the membranes, to give it an open-
ing to escape by. Having thus passed
through the oesophagus into the stomach,
it is then regurgitated into its requisite F; g _Mode of
repository upon arriving at home. folding the tongue

. . , „ . in repose. 1. In

The entire proboscis, with all its appen- abnormal bee. 2.

dages attached, has in the Apidce three dis-
tinct hinges or articulations, including that
which attaches it by its extreme base to of the tongue

4-0 BRITISH BEES.

the under surface of the mouth and lower portion of the
head, the cavity of which, when folded, it fills, and even
then the apex of the tongue protrudes in some genera
beyond the sheathing maxillae. In the Andrenidce it has
but two articulations, and the maxillse always cover them
entirely in repose. The first articulation, forming the
fulcrum of the whole, is always elbowed in the Apidte,
and consequently not capable, like the rest of the joints,
of full linear extension. The attached diagram will give
a clearer conception of the mode of folding : a is the la-
bium, and b the tongue.

As we have no complete description of the mode by
which the tongue of the bee is worked, and how it
gathers up its honey, I thought it desirable to be fuller
upon the subject than was originally my intention.

The last portion of the trophi, also double, are the man-
dibles ; they articulate on each side with the cheeks ; they
act laterally, and are variously formed, according to the
2 3 economy of the in-

r-^^—M ^CTlZ^Ci sec^ ^n the females

they are usually
more or less toothed,

Fig. 10. — Mandibles : 1, of leaf-cutter bee an(j are especially
(HfegacJiile) ; 2, of burrower (Andrena) ; 3, of ' •>

parasite (Nomada). broad, curved, and

toothed in the artisan bees. In Apis and Bombus they
are subdentate. In males they are frequently simply
acute, but in some species, especially in Andrena, they
have a long spine at the base, which points downwards
when they are closed. To this sex they appear to be of
no use beyond aiding them to stay the wayward caprice
or flight of their mistresses ; and, although they have
nn analogical structure in the males of those genera
wherein they are much dilated and toothed, yet they do

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 41

not seem to be at all used by that sex for any purpose
but sexual. In the females they are used for the con-
struction of their burrows and nests, and for the pur-
pose of nipping the narrow spurs and tubes of flowers
to get at the nectar ; and they often nip, whilst seeking
pollen, the anthers of the flowers which have not yet
burst their receptacles of pollen.

These insects must necessarily nicely appreciate the
quantity of pollen requisite to the full development of
the young insect, and, although we often observe a re-
markable difference of size in the individuals of a species,
this may rather arise from some defect in the quality of
the nutritive purveyance than in its quantity, for instinct
would as efficiently provide for this purpose as it un-
questionably guides to the collection and storing of the
nutritive supplies.

Having thus completed the description of the head
and of all its attachments, I proceed to —

The THORAX, which is divided by sutures into three
parts already mentioned above, viz. the prothorax, the
mesothorax, and the metathorax.

The collar, or upper part of the prothorax, is often
very distinct, and even angulated laterally in front, and
frequently presents, both in colouring and form, a specific
character. At its under portion on each side the ante-
rior legs are articulated.

All the legs comprise the coxa, or hip-joint; the tro-
chanter, which is a small joint forming the connection
between this and the next joint the femur, or thigh ; the
tibia, or shank ; and the tarsus, or foot. The latter con-
sists of five joints, declining in length from the first,
which is generally as long as all the rest united together ;
the first, in the anterior pair, being called the palma,

42

BRITISH BEES.

or palms ; and in the four posterior plants, or soles ;
the other joints are called the digiti, or fingers, or tarsus
collectively ; at the extremity of the terminal one are the
two claws, which are sometimes simple hooks, but usually
have a smaller hooklet within ; they have both lateral and
perpendicular motion, and between their insertion is af-
fixed the pulvillus, or cushion. The coxa in their occa-
sional processes exhibit very useful specific characters, as
do the markings and form of the remaining joints of the
leg and foot, which in several genera furnish generic pecu-
liarities. The four anterior tarsi have each a moveable
spine, or spur, at their apex within, which can be expanded
to the angle at which the insect wishes to place the limb,
and to which it forms a collateral support ; the posterior
tibiae have two each of these spurs, excepting in the genus
Apis, which has none to this leg. Attached to this
spur on the anterior tibiae of all the bees, there is, with-
in, a small velum, or sail, as it has been
called; this is a small angular appendage
affixed within the spur by its base. At
the base of the palmse of the same legs,
and opposite the play of this velum, there
is a deep sinus, or curved incision, the
strigilis, called thus or the curry-comb,
from the pecten, or comb of short stiff
hair which fringes its edge. Upon this
aperture the velum can act at the will of

^ coxa" ^ie ^nsec^ an(^ combined they form a
6,trochanter; e,fe- circular orifice. The object of this appa-

mur, or thigh ; d, • , , i i f

tibia, or shank; e, ratus is to keep the antennae clean, tor
ami s™i- the insect, when it wishes to cleanse one

gilis; ^digitus; h, th Qther Qf t]l J it within tnis

claw; r, pulvillus,

or cushion. sinus of the palma, and then, pressing the

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 43

velum of the spur upon it, removes, by the combined
action of the comb and the velum, all excrescences or
soilure from it, and this process it repeats until satisfied
with the cleanliness of the organ : and this it may be
frequently seen doing. This arrangement proves how
essential to the well-being of the insect is the condition
of its antennae, the sinus, or strigilis, or curry-comb, as
it may be called, being always adapted in size to the thick-
ness of the antennae, for insects being always both right-
and left-handed, they therefore use the limb on each side
to brush the antenna of that side. The palmse and other
joints of the tarsus of the fore legs are greatly dilated in
many males, or fringed externally with stiff setse, which
give it as efficient a dilatation as if it were the expansion
of its corneous substance. The anterior tarsi of the
females are likewise fringed with hair, to enable them to
sweep off and collect the pollen, and to assist also in the
construction and furnishing of their burrows. The in-
termediate tarsi are as well often very much extended
in the males, being considerably longer than those of the
other legs. The use of the claws at the apex of the tarsi
is evidently to enable the insect to cling to surfaces.
The manner in which the bee convevs either the

V

pollen, or other material it purposes carrying home, to
the posterior legs, or venter, which is to bear it, is very
curious. The rapidity of the motions of its legs is then
very great ; so great, indeed, as to make it very difficult
to follow them ; but it seems first to collect its material
gradually with its mandibles, from which the anterior
tarsi gather it, and that on each side passes successively
the grains of which it consists to the intermediate legs
by multiplicated scrapings and twistings of the limbs ;
this then passes it on by similar manoeuvres, and depo-

44 BRITISH BEES.

sits it, according to the nature of the bee, upon the pos-
terior tibiae, and planta, or upon the venter. The evi-
dence of this process is speedily manifested by the
posterior legs gradually exhibiting an increasing pellet
of pollen. Thus, for this purpose, all the legs of the
bees are more or less covered with hair. It is the man-
dibles which are chiefly used in their boring or excavat-
ing operations, applying their hands, or anterior tarsi,
only to clear their way; but by the constructive or
artisan bees they are used both in their building and
mining operations, and are worked like trowels to collect
moist clay, and to apply it to the masonry of their
habitations.

The mesothorax, or central division of the thorax, has
inserted on each side near the centre the four wings,
the anterior pair articulating beneath the squamulae, or
wing scales, which cover their base like an epaulette, and
this wing scale often yields a specific character. In
repose the four wings lie, horizontally, along the body,
over the abdomen, the superior above, the inferior beneath.
The wings themselves are transparent membranes, in-
tersected by threads darker than their own substance,
called their nervures, which are supposed to be tubular.
These nervures and the spaces they enclose, called cells,
are used in the superior wing only, and only occasion-
ally, as subsidiary generic characters, and their termi-
nology it will be desirable to describe, as use will be
made subsequently of it. At the same time, to facili-
tate the comprehension of the terms, an illustrative dia-
gram is appended ; but those parts only will be de-
scribed which have positive generic application. I may,
however, first observe that upon the expansion of the
wings in flight, the insect has the voluntary power

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES.

45

of making the inferior cling to the superior wing by a
series of hooklets with which its anterior edge is fur-
nished at about half the length of that wing, which gives
to the thus consolidated combination of the two a greater
force in beating the air to accelerate its progress. That
the insect has a control over the operation of these
hooklets is very evident, for, upon settling, it usually
unlocks them, and the anterior are often seen separated
and raised perpendicularly over the insect ; but that this
can be mechanically effected also is shown sometimes
in pinning a bee for setting, when by a lucky accident
the pin catches the muscles which act upon the wings,
and they become distended, as in flight, closely linked
together. Both the dia-
gram and the description
of this superior wing I
borrow from an elaborate
paper of my own in
the first volume of the
' Transactions of the En-
tomological Society of
London/ wherein I gave a tabulated view, in chronolo-
gical order, of the nomenclature introduced by succes-
sive entomologists in the use they made of the anterior
wing of the Hymenoptera for generic subdivision, and
which I subsequently applied to my own work upon the
' Fossorial Hymenoptera of Great Britain.'

Attached to the mesothorax in the centre, above and
behind, are the scutellum and post-scutellum, which in
colouring or form often yield subsidiary generic or
specific characters. On each side of the mesothorax in
front, above the pectus, or breast, and just below and
before the articulation of the anterior wings, there is a

Fig. 12. — Superior wing, a, marginal
cell ; b, first cubital or submarginal cell ;
c, second ditto ; d, third ditto ; e and /,
first aud second recurrent uervures.

46

BRITISH BEES.

small tubercle, or boss, separated from the surround-
ing integument by a suture, the colouring of which fre-
quently yields a specific character, but its uses are not
known.

The metathorax carries the posterior legs laterally
beneath, and in the centre, behind, the abdomen. The

posterior legs are the chief organs
I used by the majority of bees for the
conveyance of pollen to store in
their cells, or, as in the case of
humble-bees or the hive bee, the
2 bee bread for the food for the young,
or the requisite materials, in the ma-
jority of other bees, for nidification.
To this end they are either densely
clothed with hair throughout their
whole extent, — usually externally
only, — or this is limited to the ex-

Fie. 13.— Posterior legs-. ,

i, of abnormal bee (An- ternjil surface or the posterior shank.
^/beeVSSTt In the social bees this shank is edged
parasitic bee (Nomada). externally with stiff bristles. In

a, coxa ; o, trochanter,

with flocculus ; c, femur; these, as in most of the bees, this

d, tibia; e, planta ; f, spi- ,. , ' , , in

nuiaj; g, tarsus, with its limb greatly and gradually expands

towards its articulation with the
planta, or first joint of the tarsus; and this surface,
which is perfectly smooth, serves to the social bee as
a sort of basket to hold and convey the collected
materials. The first joint of the tarsus, or planta, of
this leg is also used in the domestic economy of the in-
sect to assist in the same object. In the domestic bee the
under side of the posterior plantse have a very peculiar
structure, consisting of a series of ten transverse broad
parallel lines of minute dense but short brushes, which

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 47

are used in the manipulations within the hive. Neither
the queen bee nor the drone have this structure, and in
the humble-bee and scopuliped bees the same joint is
uniformly covered with this brush without its being se-
parated into lines.

The ABDOMEN of bees has many shades, its form be-
ing elliptical, cylindrical, subcylindrical, clavate, coni-
cal or subconical, and sometimes semicircular, or con-
cavo-convex. It consists of six imbricated plates, called
segments, in the female, and of seven in the male;
iu the latter sex, in several genera, it takes beneath at
its base and at its apex, as well as at the extremity of
the latter, remarkable forms and armature. It is very
variously clothed and coloured, and sometimes extremely
gaily and elegantly so ; these various markings often giv-
ing the insects their specific characteristics ; the clothing
of the under side of this segment of the body, likewise,
furnishes subsidiary generic characters, especially in the
artisan bees, in whom it takes the place of the pos-
terior legs as a polliniferous organ. This is possibly
because were the supply conveyed upon their poste-
rior legs it would be rubbed away as they entered the
narrow apertures of their nests. Nature does nothing in
vain, and there is evidently a purpose in this arrangement.

If we can trace peculiarities of structure to efficient
reasons, differences of form may be rationally concluded
as having their cause too, even if it elude our explana-
tory research. Although the reason of peculiar structure
is not always obvious, it must exist, though undetected ;
as, for instance, why in some bees, as in Meyachile,
Osmia, Chdostoma, Anthldium, etc., the under side of the
abdomen should be furnished densely with hairs to carry
their provision of pollen home to their nest, when in other

48 BRITISH BEES.

bees, as in Dasypoda, Panuryus, Eucera,Anthophora, etc.
etc., it is conveyed upon the posterior legs, we do not
know ; we can only surmise that it is either to save the
insect, in the former case, the labour of constructing a
larger cylinder for nidification, so to prevent the possi-
bility of its being rubbed off from the external surface
of the legs, did these carry it, in entering the burrow,
it being protected from this abrasion by being placed
beneath the venter. In such insects the abdomen is
usually truncated at its origin, or even hollowed within
its base, thus to meet the projection of the metathorax,
enabling it to draw itself closely up together, making
the abdomen and metathorax, as it were, cohere. A
different form of abdomen occurs in those bees which
carry the pollen on their posterior legs. It is then more
or less elliptical or lanceolate, which form permits the
legs to be drawn up towards the metathorax within the
space that kind of form furnishes, which, by this diffe-
rent but equivalent arrangement,, meets the same object.
The similarity of the adjustment of the abdomen to the
metathorax to that of Mcgachile, etc. in Apis and Bom-
bus, by which insects the provision is also carried on the
posterior legs, results from the totally different economy
and habitation of the social bees, to which this structure
is necessary for many purposes.

If we observe this same peculiarity of structure in the
cuckoo, or parasitical bees, it is because we find resem-
blances where there are alliances. Thus, the male
artisan bees, although not assisting in the labour of
constructing the apartments, have similarly dilated man-
dibles to those of their females. So also, in the form
of the abdomen, the Nomadce are like the Andrena
and Halicti, upon which they are chiefly parasitical.

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 49

Mdecta resembles Anthophora ; C&lioxys has the form
otMegachile, both in the hollowed base of the abdomen
and the peculiar manner the latter has of raising its
extremity, — something like a StapJiyl'mus. Many other
peculiarities of resemblancce might be enumerated.

Having thus completed the description of the external
anatomy of the bee desirable to be known for facilita-
ting the comprehension of what I may have subse-
quently to say. I shall now refer to a few peculiarities
of their manners, which could not be conveniently in-
troduced elsewhere.

In their modes of flight bees vary considerably ; some
dart along in a direct line, with almost the velocity of
lightning, visit a flower for an instant, and then dart off
again with the same fleetness and vivacity, like Saropoda
and Anthophora ; others leisurely visit every blossom,
even upon a crowded plant, with patient assiduity, like
Bombus ; and some, either from fatigue, or heat, or in-
toxication, repose, like luxurious Sybarites, within the
corolla of the flower. The males seem to flutter about
in idle vagrancy, and may be often observed enjoying
themselves upon some fragrant hedge-row. But the
domestic bee and the humble-bee are the most sedulous
in their avocation, and both cheering their labour with
their seemingly self-satisfied and monotonous hum.

Bees, too, have a voice ; but this voice does not pro-
ceed from their mouth, nor is it the result of air passed
from the lungs through the larynx, and modulated by
the tongue, teeth, and lips; for bees breathe through
spiracles placed laterally along the several segments of
the body, and their interior is aerified by tracheae, which
ramify variously through it; but their voice is produced
by the vibration of the wings beating the air during

E

50 BRITISH BEES.

flight. Even as Linnaeus constructed a floral clock to

&

indicate the succession of hours by the expansion of
the blossoms of flowers, so might a Beethoven or a Men-
delssohn— the latter in the spirit of his philosophical
ancestor — note down the several sounds of the hum of
the many kinds of bees to the construction of a scale
of harmonic proportions, whose ^Eolian tones, heard in
the fitfulness of accidental reverberation amidst the soli-
tudes of nature, repeatedly awaken in the mind of the
entomologist the soothing sensation of a soft, volup-
tuous, but melancholy languor, or exhilarate him with
the pleasing feeling of brisk liveliness and impatient
energy.

It is rarely that a bee is seen to walk, although a
humble-bee or hive bee may be seen crawling sometimes
from flower to flower on the same footstalk, but they
are never good pedestrians. They convey themselves
noon the whiff from blossom to blossom, and even on

J. O '

proceeding home they alight close to the aperture of
their excavated nidus, to which an unerring instinct
seems to guide them. There occasionally they will
meet with the intrusive parasite, to whom some genera
(Anthophora, Colletes) give immediate battle, and usually
succeed in repulsing the interloper, who patiently awaits
a more favourable opportunity to effect her object.

Bees are exceedingly susceptible of atmospheric
changes; even the passage of a heavy cloud over the
sun will drive them home; and if an easterly wind pre-
vail, however fine the weather may otherwise be, they
have a sort of rheumatic abhorrence of its influences,
and abide at home, of which I have had sometimes woful
experience in long unfruitful journeys.

The cause would seem to be the deficiency of electri-
city in the air, for if the air be charged, and a westerly

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 51

wind blow, or there be a still sultriness with even an
occasionally overcast sky, they are actively on the alert,
and extremely vivacious. They are made so possibly by
the operation of the influence upon their own system
conjunctively with the intensity of its action upon the
vegetable kingdom, and the secretions of the flowers
both odorous and nectarian.

Bees do not seem to be very early risers, the influence
of the sun being their great prompter, and until that
grows with the progress of the morning they are not
numerously abroad. Early sometimes in the afternoon
some species wend homewards, but during the greatest
heat of the day they are most actively on the alert.
The numbers of individuals that are on the wing at
the same time must be astounding, for the inhabitants
of a single colony, where they may, perhaps, be called
semi-gregarious, from nidificating collectively within a
circumscribed space, can be computed by myriads.
And then the multitude of such colonies within even a
limited area ! When we add to this the many species
with the same productiveness ! Yet who, in walking
abroad, sees them but the experienced entomologist?
When we consider the important function they exercise
in the economy of nature, and that but for them, in the
majority of instances, flowers would expand their beau-
tiful blossoms in abortive sterility, we can but wonder at
the wise and exuberant provision which forecasts the
necessity and provides accordingly. But that even these
should not superabound, there is a counterbalance in
the numerous Enemies to which they are exposed. The
insectivorous animals, birds, among which there is one
especially their arch-enemy — the bee-eater; those rep-
tiles which can reach them ; many insects in a variety

E 2

52 BRITISH BEES.

of ways, as the cuckoo-bees, whose foster-young starve
the legitimate offspring by consuming its sustenance;
and personal parasites, whose abnormal and eccentric
structure required an Order to be established for their
admission. Strange creatures ! more like microscopic
repetitions of antediluvian enormities than anything
within the visible creation, and to whose remarkable
peculiarities I shall have occasion to return. Amongst
the Diptera and Lepidoptera also they have their
enemies.

Bees are sometimes exceedingly pleasant to capture,
for many of them emit the most agreeable scents ; some
a pungent and refreshing fragrance of lemons; others
the rich odour of the sweetest-scented rose ; and some a
powerful perfume of balsamic fragrance and vigorous in-
tensity. These have their set-off in others which yield
a most offensive smell, to which that of garlic is pleasant,
and assafoetida a nosegay. These odours must have some
purpose in their economy, but what it may be has not
been ascertained.

They present very frequently remarkable disparities
of structure and appearance in the sexes, so much so
that its infrequency is rather the exception than the
rule, and nothing in many cases but practical experi-
ence can associate together the legitimate sexes. Dif-
ferences of size are the simplest conditions of these
distinctions, for they occur also in individuals of the
same sex. Differences of colour, consisting in increased
intensity in the males, are also usually easily recognized ;
but the relative length and structure of the anteimse is
a more marked disparity, and the development is always
in favour of the male. The differences in the compound
eyes are conspicuous in our native genera only in the

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 53

drone, where they converge on the vertex, and throw the
stemmatadown upon the face. T have before alluded to
special peculiarities in the legs when treating of those
limbs. In the wings there are occasional differences,
but so slight as not to require, in a general survey, spe-
cial notice ; but wherever they occur it is always in the
male that the greatest extension of those limbs is found.
The differences in the termination of the abdomen I
have noticed above, and these sexual peculiarities in
some genera are very marked. The spines which arm
it in Anthidium and Osmia, and its peculiar structure in
Chelostoma we can account for; but we have not the
same clue to their uses in Ccelioxys, in which the action
of the abdomen is upward, and not downward, as in the
others.

The association of the legitimate partners of our native
species has been to a great extent already accomplished
and recorded ; therefore, in this case, with the requisite
guides to further instruction at hand, the commencing
entomologist will find no obstruction, but may register
the observations of his own experience to verify the dis-
coveries of his predecessors.

It would seem from the facts that have been recorded,
and the close investigations made, that in some instances
the next year's bee is already disclosed and in the imago
state, in the autumn of the existing year, so that it is
ready, upon the first genial weather in the spring, to
work its way out of its nidus, and take its part in the
duties it has to perform. Whether this be for the eco-
nomy of the food to the larva, or the saving of labour
to the parent in gathering it, or that it would be preju-
dicial for it to lie dormant in the pupa state during the
winter is not known, but thus in many instances it is.

54 BRITISH BEES.

Sometimes a late autumnal impregnation takes place,
for the males of some Andrenite, Halicti, and Bombi are
found abroad only late in the autumn, and then in fine
and recently disclosed condition.

It is a singular circumstance in the history of some
species, that where they abound one season, nidificating
on a certain spot in profusion, the following year, per-
haps, and the year succeeding that, they will not be seen
at all, but yet again a further year, and there they are
as innumerable as ever,

What may control this intermittent appearance it is
impossible to conceive, all the conditions of the spot and
its surroundings being the same. This I have found to
be a peculiarity incidental to many of the aculeate Hy-
menoptera. It occurs also in the flowering of many
plants which blossom irregularly from season to season.
It is a fact scarcely concordant with the observed rapi-
dity of the disclosure of the larva from the egg, and the
speedy growth, development, and transformation of the
latter into the pupa and imago.

The wild bees appear to be of annual, or of even more
restricted duration merely. Of this, however, we have
no certainty. The conclusion is derived chiefly from
the circumstance that, as they progressively come forth
with the growth of the year, they, when first appearing,
are in fine and unsoiled condition. There are evidently
in some species two broods in the year ; the one in the
spring and the other autumnal. In bees without pu-
bescence we have not the same guide. But humble-bees
are reputed to have a longer life than of one year, and
hive bees are said to survive several years, a duration of
existence inconsistent with analogy, and which has been
repeatedly and strongly denied.

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 55

In speaking of the antenna and palpi, I have called
them sensiferous organs. The organ necessarily implies
the perception, or whatever it may be, conveyed to the
sensorium through its means, this being the receptacle
of the sensation or idea, the external organ communi-
cates. It is thus that activity is given to a power of
discrimination, and consequently of election or rejection
by the creature. This sensorium, in the higher animals,
is the brain ; and in the lower, where the nervous system
is very differently constituted, a ganglion, or knot of
nervous substance. That this brain, or ganglion, is the
power exercising the control, may not be admitted,
although it is there that our research compulsively ter-
minates. The power itself is essentially spiritual, acting
through a material agent, and may be an efflux of this
nervous mass. "Whether it cease with the death of the
organ, we have no means of knowing. That it may be
in some way analogous in nature to the human mind,
but to a limited extent, there is reason to surmise. This
power, in its collective capacity, is called INSTINCT.
This instinct is a faculty whose clear comprehension and
lucid definition seem impossible to our understanding.
Its attributes are very various, and its operations are
always all but perfect. It is an almost unerring guide
to the creature exercising it, and is as fully developed
on its awakening as is, and with it, the imago upon its
transformation.

Although observation has thought to have detected
that experience sometimes uses a selection of means, and
thus occasionally modifies the rigid exercise of the faculty,
by adapting itself to the force of circumstances, it, when
so, evidently assumes a higher character than has been
willingly accorded to it. This instinct teaches the just

56 BRITISH BEES.

disclosed bee, without other teaching than that of the
intuitive faculty, where to find its food, and how to
build its abode. It directs it to the satisfying its ma-
terial needs, and instructs it to provide for its offspring,
and to protect them whilst in their nidus; the impulse
to which follows immediately upon the satisfaction of
the sexual desire, to which it is the seal.

If it be memory that guides the bee from its wide
wanderings back to its home, this then becomes an at-
tribute to the faculty. Instinct indicates to them their
enemies, and the wrongs these may intend, and sho\vs
them how they may be repulsed or evaded. In some of
its operations it seems to be of a more perfect capacity
than the operative faculty of human intelligence.

The senses evidently possessed by our insects are
sight, feeling, taste, and smell, but whether they hear we
cannot know, although the antennse have been supposed
to be its organ, for the apparent responsiveness of these
to loud and sudden sounds, may equally result from the
agitations of the air these produce. Their possession of
touch, taste, and smell, are implied from what has been
observed.

They certainly exercise a will, evinced by their power
of discrimination, which decides what is salutary and
what is noxious; and the passions are exemplified in
their revenge, their sexual love, and their affection for
their offspring, the latter being exhibited in their un-
remitting labour and careful provision for them, although
they are never to see them. If there be any precedence
in the order of the relative quality and distinction of the
bees, it will be shown in the degree of superiority with
which this function is accomplished. The perfection of
this function we see progressively maturing as it passes

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 57

onwards from the merely burrowing-bee to the more
complicated processes of the masons, carpenters, and
upholsterers, — all solitary insects, and working each in-
dividually and separately to the accomplishment of its
object. But we may certainly inquire where we shall
intercalate the sagacity of the cuckoo-bees. A vast
bound is immediately made from the artisan bees to
the social bees with three sexes, which, as first shown in
the humble-bee, works in small and rude communities,
with dwellings of irregular construction. The next and
most perfect grade is the metropolitan polity, accom-
plished architecture, laborious parsimony, indomitable
perseverance, and well-organized subordination of the
involuntary friend of man, the domestic bee. This in-
sect has furnished Scriptural figures of exquisite sweet-
ness, poetry with pleasing metaphors, morality with
aphorisms, and the most elegant of the Latin poets with
the subject of the supremest of his perfect Georgics.

That bees feel pain may be assumed from the evidence
we have of their feeling pleasure, although instances are
on record of insects surviving for months impaled ; and
they lose a limb, or even an antenna, without evincing
much suffering, arid I have seen a humble-bee crawling
along on the ground with its abdomen entirely torn
away.

In speaking of the antennae above, as possibly the
organs of hearing, I would wish to add, that they evi-
dently possess some complex function, of which, not
possessing any analogy, we cannot certainly conceive any
notion. They are observed to be used as instruments
of touch, and that too of the nicest discrimination. They
seem to be extremely sensitive to the vibrations of sound
and the undulations of air, and keenly appreciative of

58 BRITISH BEES.

atmospheric influences, of heat, of cold, and of electrical
agitations. That they are important media in sexual
communication must be assumed from their great differ-
ences of structure and size in the sexes, probably both
as organs of scent and stimulation. I have often ob-
served bees thrust their antennae into flowers, one at the
time, before they have entered the flower themselves,
and in some insects, as in the Ichneumons, thev are eon-

•/

stantly in a state of vibration, — a tribe which, although
of the same order, are remote in position from the bees,
yet they may be instructively referred to by way of
analogy in the discussion of the uses of an organ, whose
functions so clearly follow its structure and position in
the organization of the entire class of insects, that the
analogy might be safely assumed in application to every
family of the class, if observation could only correctly
ascertain its uses in any one of them.

That it is of primary signification to the bees, is suffi-
ciently shown by nature having furnished these insects
with an apparatus designed solely to keep the antennae
clean, and which I have described above, when speaking
of the structure of the anterior leg.

In the social tribes the antennse are used as means of
communication. The social ants, bees, and wasps may
be often seen striking each other's antennae, and then
they will each be observed to go off in directions different
from that which they were pursuing. An extraordinary
instance of this mode of communication once came under
my own notice, having been called to observe it. There
was a dead cricket in my kitchen, another issued from
its hole, and in its ramblings came across this dead one ;
after walking round, and examining it with its antennae
and fore legs a short time, it started off. Shortly,

GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 59

either attracted by sound, or meeting it by accident, it
came across a fellow ; they plied their antennae together,
and the result was that both returned to their dead com-
panion, and dragged him away to their burrowing-place,
— an extraordinary instance of intercommunication which

•>

I can vouch for.

It would be curious to know if the means of commu-
nication thus evidently possessed by animals, extends
beyond the social and gregarious tribes, and whether the
faculty undergoes any change through differences of
climate and locality, as man has done in the lapse of
time. For man, notwithstanding the vastly divergent
differences of race, may be obscurely tracked through
the dim trail of the affiliation of languages to one com-
mon origin. But the complete identity of habit through-
out the world of those genera which are native with us,
would seem to affirm that they are as closely allied in
every other particular, were we in a condition to make
the investigation, and whence we may conclusively
assume that they all had one central commencement.

That this mode of communication, and this exercise
of the organ in the solitary tribes is limited to the
season of their amours is very probable, and I appre-
hend that it is not exercised between individuals of dis-
tinct species. But that, at that period, their action is
intensified may be presumed from the then greater acti-
vity of the males, who seem to have been called into
existence only to fulfil that great object of nature, and
which she associates invariably with gratification and
pleasure. Even in plants it may be observed to be at-
tended with something very analogous to animal enjoy-
ment in the peculiar development at that period of an
excessively energetic propulsion, which is the nearest

60 BRITISH' BEES.

approach the vegetable kingdom makes to the higher
phase of sensiferous life.

The clothing and colouring of bees are very various,
but the gayest are the parasites, red and yellow, with
their various tints, and white and cream-colour decorate
them. The ordinary colour is deep brown, or chestnut,
or black. Where the pubescence is not dense, they are
often deeply punctured, and exhibit many metallic tinges.
Many are thickly clothed with long hair, and this, espe-
cially in the Bombi and Apathi, is sometimes of bright
gay colour, yellow, red, white, of a rich brown, or an in-
tense black, sometimes in bands of different tints upon
the same insect, and sometimes of one uniform hue.

61

CHAPTER III.

SKETCH OF THE GEOGRAPHY OP THE GENERA OF

BRITISH BEES.

I.v giving a broad sketch of the geography of the
genera of bees which are native to our islands, but
whose local distribution I shall reserve for notice in the
account of the genera themselves, I must regret at the
outset the lack of materials for its satisfactory treat-
ment.

There are but very few exceptions to the dearth of
assiduity in this direction ; a very favourable one is that
of the son of the late venerable hymenopterologist, the
Count le Pelletier de St. Fargeau, who, at his military post
as an officer of the French array in Algeria, stationed at
Oran, collected energetically for his father in that district,
and where, in one of his collecting excursions, he was
severely wounded by a musket-ball. Another equally
favourable exception is that of Sydney Smith Saunders,
Esq., residing at Prevesa, in Albania, who has stre-
nuously and perseveringly collected in that country.
Here and there we can point to something having been
done in Upper India, in the vicinity of Poonah, at Pon-
dicherrVj in Java, in some limited localities of China, and
to some extent in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand,

62 BRITISH BEES.

but nothing of any magnitude. There is much hope that
a great deal has been done in Ceylon by Mr. Thwaites,
who, when resident at Bristol, was a most ardent and
successful hymenopterologist.

The Egyptian Hymenoptera have been extensively and
admirably figured by Savigny, in the Imperial superb
work published under the auspices of Napoleon I., but
to these, unfortunately, no descriptive text was pub-
lished, and they are therefore as useless to science as if
they had not been figured. But those collected by
Ehrenberg, and figured by King, in the ' Symbols
Physicse/ exhibit how rich in variety is that remarkable
region. These figures may be called the ne plus ultra
of entomological artistic skill.

Unfortunately, this Order has been sadly neglected for
the sake of the less troublesome Coleoptera, and the more
conspicuous Lepidoptera. This is plainly perceptible
from the paucity of species recorded as having beeu once
in the Count Dejean's collection, where we might have
expected to have obtained a rich view of the Hymenoptera
of Spain; as also in those of other French collectors,
who have had rare but neglected opportunities for the
purpose. It is true M. Brulle has done a good deal in
Greece. We are, as yet, in comparative ignorance, from
the same cause of neglect, of the Hymenoptera of Italy,
excepting something that has been done by the Marquis
Spinola, in Liguria, and by Rossi, in Tuscany. A little
has been contributed towards that of Carniola, but we
are almost ignorant of the Hymenoptera of Sicily, which,
from various causes, are likely to be very peculiar. Mr.
Swainson's collection of them, although not numerous,
were neglected until they became unintelligible. The
only European countries that have been tolerably gleaned

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. G3

are Germany, Sweden, a part of Russia, and even Fin-
laud. It is impossible for any entomologist to examine
every locality for himself, he must, in great measure,
depend on the labours of others ; and, of course, I can
only speak of the collections which are accessible to me,
or Avhich are described in monographs, or have been
named in lists that have been published. Doubtless the
Museum of Berlin, so long under the administration of
a lover of the Order, Dr. Klug, would present a large
contribution to our knowledge of the distribution of the
forms, did a list of its riches exist. Such a list of the
menoptera of Portugal, contained in Count Hoffmau-
segg's collection, was published many years ago in Illi-
ger's 'Magaziu der Insectenkunde..'

It has been a fatality incidental to this entomological
branch of the study of natural history that some of its
most energetic cultivators have been taken earlv away.
There was formerly Illiger, then our own Leach, and
then Erichsen. Leach, but for his afflicting malady,
Avould have done much for the science ; still, let us
hope that the Hymenoptera, and especially the bees, are
gaining ground in the estimation of entomologists gene-
rally, and that not many years will pass before collec-
tors will possess them in abundance. For the present,
I can but give a slight summary of the knowledge we
possess on this subject.

Thus science has sustained great loss by reason of the
unfortunate neglect which the family of bees, and, in-
deed, the Order of Hijmenoptera generally, has met with
from collectors in distant localities whose tastes have
led so directly to the collection of other more favoured
Orders, and the opportunities for repairing the conse-
'•uences of such neglect being in some cases extremely

64 BRITISH BEES.

rare. The present slight attempt to trace the geography
and cosmopolitan range of our native genera of bees
will necessarily be affected to some considerable extent
by this neglect.

Although the materials in our possession will yield
some fruit, yet their collection will be but the gleaner's
handful, instead of a loaded wain from a rich and abun-
dant harvest. As what I have gathered may still have
an interest for some of my readers, I will lay it before
them, and in doing so I shall take the genera in their
methodical series.

The genus COLLETES comes first, a position the more
remarkable from the peculiarities of its economy and
form, which bring it closely to the true bees, as do also
its aptitude, by reason of its structure, for collecting
pollen, and its energy in gathering it. The divergence
in the form of the tongue brings it, however, to the ex-
treme commencement of the series, it being the closest
structural link we find for connecting the bees with the
preceding family of wasps. This genus, in our own
species, ranges through northern Europe to the high la-
titude of Finland, passing through Sweden; and it oc-
curs also in Russia and in the Polish Ukraine. In
other species than ours, and differing among themselves,
it occurs at both extremities of Africa, in Egypt, and
Algeria, and at the Cape of Good Hope ; but whether
throughout the wide interval collections do not inform

O

us. It has been sent from Turkey, but whence? — for
this is as vague a designation as Russia, both being-
empires which spread over vast areas, — and, if found in
their Asiatic divisions, are the only instances we know
of its Asiatic occurrence. It is so easy for collectors to
add to their specimens a denned and precise locality,

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 65

that its omission in any instance is to be regretted, as
in many ways, and in all kinds of collections, it might
be very serviceable to science. To our present purpose
it has but a collateral interest as an object of curiosity,
yet curiosity has led to many discoveries which have
proved valuable to mankind. All the divisions of natu-
ral science have a mutual and convertible bearing, and
closely interlink in their relations. Thus, insects de-
note the botany, which further indicates the climate or
elevation and soil; and the superficial soil will point
geological conclusions to subsoil and substructure. One
natural science well mastered gives a key to the great
storehouse of nature's riches, and yields a harvest of
many different crops. This episode may be excused
for the hint it is intended to give of the paramount im-
portance of the correct registration of special localities.

The genus Collet es also occurs in the Canary Islands,
which shows a trending tendency to its southern ha-
bitat at the Cape of Good Hope. It occurs on the west-
ern edge of South America, in Chili ; it is found on its
northern boundary in Columbia, and has been disco-
vered in the southern States of North America, in Flo-
rida and Georgia ; but there is no record of its further
northern occurrence upon that continent. About thirty
species are known.

The genus Pftosopis/or as it is more familiarly known
by the name of HYL.EUS, is found in some of our native
species throughout France and Germany, and, like the
preceding, as high up as Finland, through Denmark and
Sweden, to the adjacent parts of Russia. It is remark-
able that it is caught in Algeria, although not recorded
as occurring in several of the southern European States.
But the apparent restriction of some of our species

66 BRITISH BEES.

to our own islands possibly arises from the fact of spe-
cial attention having been paid to them in this country
only.

The genus itself, in other and more variegated forms
than ours, presents itself in some portions of southern
and south-western Europe, where the highly ornamented
species would point almost to the certainty of its being
a parasitical genus, great decoration being in our native
genera of bees the badge of parasitism, and may be in-
dicative of those habits, combined as they are conjunc-
tively with their destitution of polliniferous organs.
Some of our native entomologists have, however, as-
sumed, upon what appears to me very inconclusive
grounds, that the genus is not parasitical. The obser-
vations, however, of the most distinguished French hy-
menopterologists confirm the notion of their being para-
sites, which appears strengthened by the argument above
suggested with regard to colour.

This genus is apparently fond of hot climates. In
eastern Europe, it occurs in Albania and the Morea, its
extreme western domicile is Portugal, and its southern
European habitat is Sicily. It is found in Algeria and
Egypt, and at the Cape of Good Hope. We discover it in
India, in the southern tropics at the Brazils, and in the
northern tropics at the Sandwich Islands; and it ranges
along the southern edge of Australia, from Swan River
through Adelaide and Port Phillip to Tasmania. The
United States of North America furnish it, and on that
continent it seems to contradict its ordinary tropical
inclination by being exceptionally found upon the con-
fines of the arctic circle at Hudson's Bay. Nearly sixty
well-distinguished species are recorded.

The genus SPHECODES has also a wide distribution.

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 67

Our native species are found throughout France and Ger-
many, Greece and Spain, still one or two seem limited
to our islands. The genus is recorded as in Albania,
Algeria, and Egypt ; it is found on the western edge of
Africa at the Canaries; it occurs also in northern
India, in the United States, on the western side of South
America at Chili, and then we have a wide gap, for
its next appearance is at Sydney, New South Wales.
About twenty species are known.

The genus ANDRENA, although infinitely more nume-
rous in species than the genus Halictus, which is also
abundant, does not appear to have so wide a distribution
as the latter. Peculiarities of habits possibly limit its
diffusion, although nothing has occurred to naturalists
to explain the circumstance, unless it be the adventi-
tious fact of no specimens having fallen into the hands
of the collector. Our own species, represented by one
or several members, are found (although some seem re-
stricted to England) throughout Europe, north and
south, east and west, as also in its islands. In Africa it
is seen in Algeria and Egypt, and it occurs in the Canaries;
and in Asia it is found in Siberia, and in northern India ;
but we have no connecting chain to link those Asiatic
and African localities, — although we may well sup-
pose that it might be discovered amongst the steppes
of Thibet and Tartary, revelling amidst the flowers of
their luxuriant pastures, and even amongst the Persian
sands. It passes through the United States from Flo-
rida up and to our own colony of Nova Scotia,- and
extends its range to Hudson's Bay. We do not trace it
further. Nearly two hundred species occur.

The genus CILISSA, too, has a limited distribution,
and occurs in the same countries, but ranges as high

F 2

68 BRITISH BEES.

as Lapland ; it also crosses the Atlantic, being found in
the United States. About six are known.

Our solitary species of the genus MACROPIS, which
is isolated possibly only from having been overlooked,
appears to have but a European existence, and is
found in France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Fin-
land.

The genus HALICTUS is very cosmopolitan. Some of
our own species occur throughout Europe, excepting
only Italy and Sicily, although they are to be found
in Portiigal and Dalmatia, thus traversing its entire
breadth ; but from the latter country they do not seem
to range down to Albania and Greece, yet are they
discovered in Malta, and even in southern Africa, but
they have not been recorded as extant in northern por-
tions of that continent. Other species have been sent
from the western coast of Africa and the adjacent Cana-
ries, with their adjunct, Madeira, and the genus ranges
from Barbary through Senegal and Sierra Leone ; some
species also are found at the Cape of Good Hope.

On the other side of Africa the genus has been dis-
covered at the Isle of Bourbon; it then takes a wide
sweep, occurring first in northern India ; it then springs
up at Foo-chow-foo, and it is found in northern China.
In western Asia it occurs in Syria. Across the Pacific
it is found in Chili. Its next appearance on the rich
and diversified continent of America is across its south-
ern bulk, presenting itself in the Brazils, and on its
northern boundary at Cayenne, and in Columbia ; and
it then appears again in Jamaica. In North America
it occurs throughout the United States from Florida
upwards, where the genus in its species has a very
English aspect, and if they be dissimilar, as may be

GEOGRAPHY OP THE GENERA. 69

fairly surmised, they are so very like our own that one is
said to be absolutely identical throughout Europe and in
Ohio. It passes still forward and occurs in Nova Scotia,
Hudson's Bay, and elsewhere in arctic America, where
the botanist might almost herbalize through the agency
of our insects, for the pollen they carry and still retain
in cabinets would often indicate the plants which they
there frequent. Thus those stern regions are not barren
in fragrant and attractive beauties. We find it, too, in
common with Sphecodes at Sydney, New South "Wales,
whence, doubtless, it passed to New Zealand, where it
has been collected. About one hundred and fifty are
registered.

With the next genus, DASYPODA, I terminate the
geography of the Andrenidce. Our own single species
of these very elegant bees occurs throughout France and
Germany, and abounds in Sweden. Other species, all ele-
gant, occur in the Isles of Greece, in Albania, and the
Morea; profusely at Malaga in Spain, and at the further
extremity of northern Africa in Tunis, and in Egypt.
Twenty are known.

The genus PANURGUS is the advanced guard of the
true bees, for, although it still retains much of the ap-
pearance and structure of the terminal genus of the pre-
ceding sub-family of Andrenidce, it is strictly distinct,
and well links the two sub-families together. This very
peculiar form is limited in number of species and in
distribution, for five only have been recorded.

Our own species occur throughout France, Italy, Ger-
many, 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

70 BRITISH BEES.

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 repre-
sentative, although considerably more than fifty species
are known, has not so wide a range as might be ex-
pected from their numbers. Our own is found through-
out 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. Far-
geau the species of both are incorporated together, —
has, even as now restricted, a world-wide dissemination,
and numbers nearly a hundred and fifty species. Se-
veral 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 Dal-
matia; 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 Hong-

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 71

kong to northern China,' where, dipping to the Phi-
lippines, it next occurs in Australia. In the New
World it is found on its western side at Chili, and tra-
verses that continent to Paraguay and Parti, and has
heen 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 through-
out 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 them-
selves in the Morea, and in Albania. North, South, and
Western Africa possess the genus, it being found in Al-
geria and at the Cape of Good Hope, and in the inter-
vening 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.

16 BRITISH BEES.

The genus NOMADA is the first of the genuine para-
sitical bees, and about the habits of which no doubt can
be entertained ; certainly not the same as attaches both
to Hylceus and Sphecodes, among the Andrenida. The
parasitical habits of Nomada are evident and unmistak-
able. 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 North-
ern China, whence through the Philippines it passes to
Tranquebar, then up to Northern India, and thence by
Bagdad to the Morea aud 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, es-
pecially among the Andrence, and smaller Halicti. The
number of species, British and foreign, known to col-
lectors approximate to a hundred.

The genus MELECTA is another handsome parasitical
insect. This is always a dark beauty, and is very limited

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 73

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 (Antho-
phora), 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 trans-
mitted from Chili. It is very limited in the number of

tt

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

74 BRITISH BEES.

•

the Brazils, but the whole number yet described is under
ten.

The remarkable form in both sexes of the genus C^E-
LIOXYS occurs in identity with our own species through-
out 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
Para, 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 (Megacliile), although it
has not yet come from such extensively-spread loca-
lities. 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 re-
nowned 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

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 75

high latitude of Lapland, which is higher than where
even one of ours (viz. the M. centuncuhtris) 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 south-
ward 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 settle-
ments, 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, Sene-
gal and Sierra Leone to Guinea, and the island of Fer-
nando 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 ex-
tensive range, no species having been found in Austra-
lasia 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

76 BRITISH BEES.

Finland. In southern Europe the genus inhabits Si-
cily, 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 cross-
ing 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 Ilussia. 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 soli-
tary 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 Reaumur, of its hanging its abode with symmetrical
cuttings from the petals of the poppy.

The genus OSMIA, although not including such able
artisans as Meyachile, still has in its species very con-
structive propensities. Indeed, all the bees which con-
vey the pollen on the under side of the abdomen, are

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 77

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 crtro?, (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 entomo-
logist 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 neu-
ters, 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

78

BRITISH BEES.

when we trace the geography of the next genus, Bombiis.
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, Apa-
thus, 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, per-
haps, 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

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 79

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 Pvrenees. It is found in

* V

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 Para 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 ob-
server 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 crea-
ture 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

80 BRITISH BEES.

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.

Reaumur, whose observations upon bees had been pur-
sued with such patient and indefatigable perseverance,
combined with such minute accuracy, and then recorded
so agreeably, and who conceived the possibility of esta-
blishing 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 coun-
tries 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, Reaumur does not, from
this circumstance, seem to have known. Had he been
acquainted with it, his philosophical accuracy of observa-
tion and habit of reflection would certainly have assumed
the possibility of differences of size in the cells of the dif-
ferent 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 cer-
tainly being of universal prevalence. It is to be won-
dered at also, that he did not weigh the possibility that
climatic differences in the distribution of even the Apis

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 81

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 absorp-
tion 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 Reaumur,
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 iden-
tity 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

G

82 BRITISH BEES.

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 small-
ness 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 con-
junction 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 know-
ledge 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 differ-
ences 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 aud wax throughout the
world, as well for the ceremonies of religion, as for the
service of the arts, aud for medical or domestic pur-

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 83

poses, 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 pro-
duce 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 in-
terior 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 pro-
ducing 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 every-
where aromatic plants and flowers. At Taif, bees yield
most excellent honey, and the honey at Mecca is ex-

G 2

84 BRITISH BEES.

quisite. 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 Pales-
tine \ve find bees abound. At Ladakiah there are large
exports both of honey and wax ; and the honey of Ain-
nete, 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, espe-
cially 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 esti-
mate of the extensiveness and universalitv of the cultiva-

tf

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

«/

applied, and the collective computation of its consump-
tion will show that bees abound in numbers almost
transcending belief.

The name of hougie for wax-candle or taper, is used

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 85

by all the languages of the south of Europe, and is de-
rived 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 tri-
bute 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 coun-
tries 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 kno\v

86 BRITISH BEES.

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 contain-
ing about four thousand hives, each numbered by the pro-
prietors 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 quan-
tities of it, in Asia Minor, those who indulged in its
enjoyment were seized with vertigo, or headache, and
violent diarrhoea, 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 ponticwn
and of the Azalea pontica, which, although sumptuous
in their blossoms, were held in bad repute by the in-
habitants, who ascribed to their odour the deleterious
effect of causing headache and vertigo. He was thence

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 87

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 oc-
casionally 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 re-
cently 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 pur-
pose 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 pro-
duce 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
Reunion, the produce of an Apis indigenous to Madagas-
car, 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 ascer-
tained, 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

88 BRITISH BEES.

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 Liyustica, 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 culti-
vated 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 conti-
nent 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
Reunion, is the Apis unicolor, which produces the green
honey mentioned above.

India, however, at present appears to be the true metro-
polis of the genus. Further discoveries in Africa may here-
after give that vastly larger continent the predominancy ;

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 89

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 num-
bers occupying a single nest being estimated at above
eighty thousand.

o *

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 con-
jecture whether, like man, they by this course of migra-
tion have assumed the features they now exhibit of dis-
tinctly different species ; yet they do not vary so conside-
rably among themselves as do many other creatures that
have come under the direct influence of man, — the chief

90 BRITISH BEES.

differences consisting in the comparatively slight dis-
tinctions 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 * has given a facsimile and a transla-
tion, 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.

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 ot' such patients who succumbed
under their treatment, it being attributed to their con-
travening the sacred prescriptions. This pharmacopeia
enumerates amongst its many ingredients, honey, wine,
and milk ; we have thus extremely early positive evi-
dence 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 Wilkin-
son 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 Egyp-
tians, that Mahomet, in his Koran, prescribes honey
as a medicine. One of the Suras, or chapters, of that

* ' Recueil de Monuments Egyptiens dessines sur les lieux.' In
Three Parts. 4-to. Leipzig, 1862.

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 91

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 con-
sider."

It is remarkable that the bee is the only creature that

V

Mahomet assumes the Almighty to have directly ad-
dressed. 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 savs, " therein is a medicine

V '

for man," which contains a curious anecdote. The note
says, " The same being not only good tood, but a useful
remedy in several distempers. There is a story that a
man once came to Mahomet, and told him -his brother

9.2 BRITISH BEES.

•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 institu-
tion 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 fre-
quently 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 ma-
d/mkara, honey-maker, the root *of the latter signify-
ing " to build." Madhu has clearly the signification of
our mead, thence we may thus trace an affinity, point-
ing 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 obscu-

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 93

rity 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 selec-
tion ; and if the reindeer of the Laplander seem an aber-
ration, 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 con-
structive 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 suc-
cession to the present times, were it desirable to recapi-
tulate 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 to-
gether, and may be suggestive of reflection, as well as
affording some amusement.

94s BRITISH BEES.

The study of the geographical distribution of natural
objects has a more universal bearing, and yields collec-
tively 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 de-
duced. Of course, small creatures with locomotive capa-
cities 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 par-
ticular 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 de-
rive reciprocal illustration. They may be merely cli-
matic, 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 appreci-
able except in the results they exhibit.

Unfortunately the bees have been too imperfectly col-
lected, 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

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 95

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 in-
struction upon the subject. Indulging in the hope that
travellers will act upon these suggestions, and thus con-
siderably 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 col-
lected, 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 pro-
pounded, 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 soli-
tary forms in certain localities are almost sure indica-
tions 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,

96 BRITISH BEES.

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; Prcsopis; Cilissa; Anthophora; No-

mada; Epeolus ; Stelis; Coslioxys; Megachile; An-

thidium; Chelostoma; Heriades; Osmia; Apathus;

Bombus; Apis.
Siveden. All our genera except Sphecodes; Halictus;

Macropis ; Anthocopa.
Denmark. All our genera except Macropis and Au-

thocopa.

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; Mega-
chile ; Anthidium ; Apathus ; Bombus ; Apis.

Italy. Andrena; Halictus; Panurgus; Eucera; Antho-
phora; Nomada; Melecta; Epeolus; Coelioxys;
Megachile; Anthidium; Osmia; Apathus; Bom-
bus; Apis.

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 97

Sicily. Prosopis; Sphecodes; Eucera; Anthophora;
Melecta; Epeolus; Megachile; Authidium ; Osmia;
Apatlius; Bombus; Apis.

Malta. Halictus; Apis.

Isles of Greece. Dasypoda; Apis.

The Morea. Prosopis ; Sphccodes ; Halictus ; Dasy-
poda; Eucera; Anthophora ; Ceratina ; Nomada;
Melecta; Anthidium; Chelostoma; Osmia; Bom-
bus; Apis.

Albania. Prosopis; Sphecodes; Dasypoda; Eucera;
Ceratina; Noraada; Melecta; Megachile; Anthi-
dium; 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; Ha-
lictus; Ceratina; Nomada; Coelioxys; Megachile;
Bombus; Apis.

Bengal. Anthophora; Ceratiua; Apis.

Tranquebar. Nomada; Apis.

Ceylon. Anthophora; Ceratina; Apis.

Bombay. Anthophora ; Megachile ; Apis.

Arabia Felix. Anthophora ; Authidium ; Apis.
NOTE. — The genus Apis does not occur in Oman.

Mesopotamia. Eucera; Nomada; Melecta; Megachile;
Anthidium.

Syria. Halictus; Eucera; Anthophora; Coelioxys; An-
thidium; Bombus; Apis,

H

93 BRITISH BEES.

In Africa we find, in —
Egypt. Colletes; Sphecodes; Andrena; Dasypoda;

Eucera; Anthophora; Saropoda; Ccelioxys; An-

tliidium ; Osmia ; Apis.
Nubia. Anthidium; Anthophora; Apis.
Abyssinia. Megachile; Apis.
Tunis. Dasypoda; Nomada; Apis.
Algeria. Collctes; Prosopis ; Sphecodes; Andrena;

Panurgus; Eucera; Anthophora; Ceratina; No-

mada; Co3lioxys; 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. Ccelioxys; Megachile; Anthidium; Apis.
Sierra Leone. Halictus ; Ccelioxys ; Megachile ; Authi-

dium ; Apis.
Coast of Guinea. Anthophora; Coelioxys; Megachile;

Anthidium ; Apis.
Fernando Po. Megachile.
Western Africa. Haiictus ; Apis.
Cape of Good Hope. Halictus; Anthophora; Ceratina;

Epeolus; Ccelioxys; Megachile; Anthidium; Apis.
South Africa [no distinct locality]. Halictus; Saro-
poda ; Apis.
Natal. Anthophora; Ccelioxys; Megachile; Anthidium;

Osmia; Apis.
Madagascar. Apis.
Reunion. Halictus; Apis.

GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 99

Mauritius. Megachile; Apis.

In America we find, in—

Arctic America and Hudson's Bay. Prosopis ; Andrcna ;
Halictus; Mcgachile; Osmia; Bombus.

Canada and Nova Scotia. Andrena ; Halictus ; Nomada ;
Ccelioxys; Megachile; Osmia; Bombus.

United States. Colletes; Sphecodes; Andrena; Cilissa;
Plalictus; Eucera; Anthophora; Ceratina; Epeolus;
Stelis; Coelioxys ; Anthidium ; Chelostoma; Ile-
riades ; Osmia ; Apatlms ; 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; Coelioxys; Megachile.

St. Dominyo. Anthophora.

Antigua. Bombus.

Guadeloupe. Anthophora.

St. Thomas's. Coalioxys; Megachile.

St. Croix. Megachile.

Cayenne. Halictus; Eucera; Ceratiua; Coelioxys; An-
thidium ; Bombus.

Para. Anthophora; Coslioxys; Bombus.

Brazils. Prosopis; Halictus; Ceratina; Epeolus; Stelis;
Ccelioxys; Megachile; Anthidium; Apatlms; Bom-
bus.

Paraguay. Anthophora.

Monte Video. Bombus.

H 2

100 BRITISH BEES.

In Polynesia there occur—

Sandwich Islands. Prosopis.

Philippines. Authophora; Nomada; Megacliile.

In Australia are found —
Swan River. Prosopis ; Megacliile.
Adelaide. Prosopis; Megachile.
Port Phillip. Prosopis.
Tasmania. Prosopis; Megachile.
Sydney. Sphecocles; Halictus.
New Zealand. Halictus.

Australia [but no distinct locality], Authophora ; Saro-
poda.

101

CHAPTER IV.

NOTICE OF THE MOEE 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

tt

as well in the multitude as in the magnificence of the
insects which she has allied with them as the indis-
pensable promoters of their perpetuation. How other-
wise than through some of the insects we shall mention
could tropical Labiates and the tubulated flowers of the
Rubiaceee, 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

102 BRITISH BEES.

more distinguished exotic genera and species, as sup-
plementary 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 pro-
duction of all our groups of both the animal and the vege-
table kingdoms.

Knowing how affluent tropical and subtropical 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 com-
parative small ness 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 allure-
ments. 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

FOREIGN GENERA OF BEES. 103

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 har-
monious order and necessary to her due course, irre-
spective of the instruction to be derived from, the study
of the manifold varieties of structure, which unquestion-
ably point to distinguishing peculiarities of habits.

In the true bees the division of the Dasygasters presents
the fewest differing generic forms: the Nudipedes and
Scopul/pedes exhibit more numerous varieties, the pre-
ponderance 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 Andrenidcs, 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 con-
sidered 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, dis-
tinctly 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 notice-

101 BRITISH BEES.

able, either from splendour, size, or remarkable eccen-
tricities of structure, are numerous. Tropical and sub-
tropical regions of course abound with them, in indivi-
duals, in species, and in genera ; and when we reflect upon
the riches of the flora of those countries, which is per-
petuated 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 enor-
mous development of its posterior tibise, 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

FOREIGN GENERA OF BEES. 105

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 Reau-
mur and the Rev. L. Guilcling, 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 latlpes,
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 being1

o

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 toere-

c5 o

ther correctly, by scientific process merely, the sexes of a
species ; thence the numbers of the species in such ge-
nera 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.

V

Exotic bees exhibit also a peculiarity I had occasion
to observe before, in reference to our own bees, amounting

' ' o

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 splen-
dour, as instanced in Aylae, Mesonychia, Mesocheira,
etc., and Mclissoda (my Ischnocera, in Lardner), is re-

106 BRITISH BEES.

markably conspicuous for its long and delicately slender
antennae 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 tibise,
which is greatly incrassated or thickened; a peculiaricy
of structure found also in some other genera of Hyme-
noptera, 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 distirguished by its large size and
splendid development, and by having the fifth joint of
the tarsus of the posterior legs longer than the three pre-
ceding 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 sub marginal cell is un-
finished. Their only separating distinction from each
other is the difference in their mandibles, which in Mel-
lipona 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

FOREIGN GENERA OF BEES. 107

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 tibiae, 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 Ameri-
can 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 Melli-
pona 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 Triyona, 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 ex-
ceedingly parsimonious in the use of this material, a cir-
cumstance 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.

108 BRITISH BEES.

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 in-
teresting family await admiration and study, when some
proficiency has been acquired in the knowledge of our
own.

103

CHAPTER V.

PARASITES OF BEES AND THEIE 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 exist-
ence, and other terms given to duration than those which
the laws of life attach to specific organization. No abate-
ment is thereby made upon the quantity of contempora-
neous 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 dis-
guise. 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 miti-
gate, to the extent of its capability, the danger of the
attack.

110 BRITISH SEES.

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 re-
tention of its meshes, but I have seen a Bomb us en-
veloped 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

c» J

kinds of Acari, and once I found a Bombus upon the
ground in Coombe Wood so swarming with the A earns
that it lay hopelessly helpless until I threw it into a
pool of water, when its attaches 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 larvse of
Meloe proscarab&us, 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

BEES AND THEIR ENEMIES. Ill

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 syngenesiom 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 at-
tached 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 depo-
sited within the bee or the bee's larva remains a mystery,
although many hypotheses have been hazarded to account

112 BRITISH BEES.

for it, but all are unsatisfactory. The Order consists of
three genera (Stylo/js,Elenchus,a,nd 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 Anglise/ 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 antenna consisting of two

BEES AND THEIR ENEMIES. 113

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 Elen-
chus to figure in his ' British Entomology,' vol. v. pi.
226, says: " These parasites look milk-white on the wing,
with a jet-hlack 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 run-
ning 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 antennae towards them, retreated. I
once thought the bee attempted to seize it; but the
oddest thing was to see the Slylops get on the body of

i

114 BRITISH BEES.

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 antennae
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 pro-
tuberance 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 nourish-
ment generally to but one Stylops; but I have occasionally
found two, and once three larvae 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

BEES AND THEIR ENEMIES. 115

facets, seated upon a sort of footstalk. The man-
dibles 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 antennae are branched, but
in Halictophagus, they arc fiabellate. The thorax is
greatly developed; the superior wing is like a rudi-
mentary 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 Halictophayus, 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 dis-
covered to infest several species of Andrena and Ha-
lictus, for instance the A. nigro-tenea, upon which Mr.
Kirby first found it ; A, labialis, which I have frequently
caught stylopized ; A. rufit arsis, fulvicrus, Mouffetella,
tibialis, Collinsonana, varians, picicornis, nana, parvula,
xanthura, convexiuscula, Afzeliella, Gwynana, etc., and
upon Halictus aeratus, etc.

The other mode of parasitism destructive to the bees is
where the parasite deposits its own egg upon the proven-
der 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 (Apidce), the subsection being called the Nudi-

116 BRITISH BEES.

pedes or naked-legged, from their not having the neces-
sary 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 Halic-
tus, and one frequents Eucera. Melecta appears confined
to Anthophora ; Epeolus to Colletes ; Stelis perhaps to
Osmia, judging from the great similarity of habit ; and
Coelioxys to the constructive Megachile. None of these
parasites resemble their sitos, but Nomada is exceed-
ingly 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 Apatlms 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 se-
parated. Although, cuckoo-bees as they are familiarly
called, they could not be associated with the Nudipedcs,
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 Nudi-
pedes by several frequenting the same nest, thus habi-

BEES AND THEIR ENEMIES. 117

tually associating with their sitos. Some of the Chrysi-
did(B are likewise, as I shall have occasion to notice in
the description of the hahits of the genera, similarly
parasitical upon some of the species of the family of
bees. The genus Mutilla is also probably entirely para-
sitical upon bees, for Mutilla Europaa is a parasite upon
Bombus lapidarius, from whose nests it has been dug in
winter, by my friend the late Mr. Pickering, whose ac-
tivity aiid accurate observation once promised to be very
beneficial to the science, but he, like many others of my
entomological friends, is now no more !

118

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 in-
duce 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 lode-
star to guide through its intricacies, but it is one which,
pursued simply as a recreation, yields both much amuse-
ment 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 won-
derful 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 com-
pass? Do we not behold limitless perfection every-
where, 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 re-

PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 119

laxation, 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 suc-
cession 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 ab-
stract parts for special examination and investigation.

The study of natural science has progressively reached
an extraordinary development, spreading in every direc-
tion 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 rela-
tions, so natural science arranges its subjects into sub-
divisions 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

120 BRITISH BEES.

accurately to determine accurately natural objects indi-
vidually. 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 dis-
tinct enough in their great frame, but when we approach
their confines, close investigation discovers analogies and
affinities, which, where the separation seems most appa-
rent, create insuperable difficulties, and render linear
succession, or distinct division, nearly an impossibility.
Here we find parallelism, and there radiation, and else-
where 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 pre-
sent 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 pre-
cludes 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 pur-
sued to its entire acquisition.

Natural objects have been arranged in KINGDOMS,

PRINCIPLES 0V SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 121

ORDERS, CLASSES, FAMILIES, and GENERA, all deduced
in their successive and collateral groups from characters
exclusively derived from SPECIES; therefore to the accu-
rate 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, con-
tains characters of wider compass than those which suc-
ceed 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 ac-
quire more rapidly the details upon which they depend.
A^e 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 dis-
tinct idea, whose correct definition is important to the
progress of accurate science. This alone permits ob-
servation 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

122 BRITISH BEES.

often elevated into species, and species thus overwhelm-
ingly 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 as-
sumed existence of neuters in some instances does not
invalidate this, it comprises two individuals having in-
dependent existence, but whose co-existence is indis-
pensable to perpetuation, but which often, from their
great differences, no single set of scientific characters
will bind together, yet which must exist in some undis-
covered peculiarity, that individuals may be able to distin-
guish 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 conjunc-
tion 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 per-
petuated 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 influ-
ence operates to control it. It is also extremely re-
markable 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 spe-

PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 123

cific 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 cer-
tain 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 pecu-
liarities 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 attri-
bute, 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 toge-
ther as one, solely for the purposes of perpetuation, the
two sexes of similar individuals, and without whose in-
tercourse 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

124 BRITISH BEES.

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 at-
traction 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 com-
prises 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 iden-
tity 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 segre-
gate it from all future and contingent discoveries. The
specific character admits, consequently, modifications to

PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 125

suit any extension of the genus, aud in fact exacts it at
the hands of all who describe new species. This many
naturalists undertake without any apparent conscious-
ness 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 Daedalian 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 affini-
ties. 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 na-
turalist, and to those who wish to name their specimen,
the experienced only can estimate. This brevity of spe-
cific character is one of Linnseus'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 Gyllen-
hal's ' Insecta Suecica/ which contains exclusively a de-
scription of Swedish Coleoptera; Gravenhorst's large

126 BRITISH BEES.

monograph of European Ichneumons ; Erichson's ela-
borate work upon the Staphylinidse ; and our own Kirby's
' Monographia Apura Anglise.' Their perfection con-
sists in fulfilling thoroughly all the above conditions,
for if any doubt exist upon comparing yonr 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 descrip-
tion 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 diffi-
culty 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 pos-
sible always to capture a bright individual.

Taking specific description thus practically in its full
and wide sense, it is requisite, for the purpose of avoid-
ing 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 gole remaining distinctive specific pecu-
liarities. Every species necessarily contains within it-
self, 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,

PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 127

species are the last but combining element of all, al-
though their most remote members. The whole system
is an ingenious contrivance for breaking down a com-
plex 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 iu
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 instantane-
ously, 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 rapi-
dity, an almost instinctive facility, as its inevitable con-
comitant, for both synthetical and analytical survey.
The mind thus becomes strengthened by vigorous exer-
cise, and has always, for every purpose, a powerful in-
strument at command, often used unconsciously, but
always effectively. Thus is habit, once correctly per-
ceived, 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

128 BRITISH BEES.

metropolis of a species — another term in use — is tlie
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 conge-
ners, 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 dis-
tinguish the new from the old.

The concentration and summary of the specific cha-
racter 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 discrimi-
native 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 sys-
tematic way pursued by the moderns ; they did not \vant
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

PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 129

names, which, like our own vernacular names, applied
rather to groups than to species, and have in conse-
quence 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 con-
tinued, which were compulsively arranged with the pre-
decessors they most nearly resembled, until resem-
blances vanished, and the boundaries fixed by the as-
sumed correct application of the names thus derived
from the ancients were passed, and there was an over-
flow 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 lumi-
nary of systematic natural history rose with a bound to
irradiate the obscurity of science with his subtile and
vivifying beams.

This was LINNAEUS, to whom we owe the binomial
system, wherein, by means of two words only (the ge-
neric or surname, and the specific or baptismal name),
the recognition of a species is perpetuated ; for Lin-

K

130 BRITISH BEES.

naeus truly says, " Nomina si nescis, peril et coynitw

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 ob-
served, 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 altera-
tion 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
Linnaeus, 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,

PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 131

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 refine-
ment. The views of svstematists will differ in the collo-

ti

cation 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 nomen-
clature, 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 con-
duce to it ; namely, an imperfect description which can-
not be clearly recognized, reducing it to that category,
with a mark of interrogation appended ; subsequent de-
scription when want of tact has not discerned the iden-
tity 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,

K2

132 BRITISH BEES.

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 de-
scribers are those who neglect to look around them to
ascertain what has been done, and this course is some-
times illicitly adopted to obtain a fleeting and mere-
tricious 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 recog-
nized, 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 ungrate-
ful 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 im-
properly 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.

PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 133

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 dis-
similarities 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 pecu-
liarities, which are essentially of a higher class than
the characters of specific separation, these being deter-
mined by colour, pubescence, sculpture, etc. etc. ; spe-
cific 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 charac-
ters of which the genus was originally framed and named,

134 BRITISH BEES.

and theoretically, however generic groups may be sub-
sequently 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 ob-
tained.

It is the necessary result of the imperfection of our
intellect, and one of the dominant conditions of over-
ruling 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 descrip-
tively as of linear succession, in which order thev 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 cha-
racters, succeeding to those of the ORDER, group together

PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 135

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 alli-
ance 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 them-
selves 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 in-
tended. 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

136 BRITISH BEES.

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 be-
comes 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

PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 137

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 cer-
tain similitudes out of the direct line of continuous
connection, and therefore remote from the strongest
connecting links of positive relationship in the methodi-
cal 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 evolu-
tion 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 re-
lations of affinity. Pursuing them, it is sometimes
observed that nature, as it were, returns upon itself, re-
producing 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

138 BRITISH BEES.

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 difficul-
ties 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 dis-
covery or creation.

The pursuit of such views stimulates profound inves-
tigation, and may lead to valuable discoveries that will
eventually give a loftier and more philosophical cha-
racter 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 mys-
teries 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 Pen-
tamera and the Heteromera in the Coleoptera, which

PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 139

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 Iclineumones have their analogues in the Ichneu-
mones adsciti, if the comparison be restricted to them-
selves, 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 re-
lationship presents itself, it is merely one of analogy.
So, also, within the pentamerous Coleoptera we have
a relationship of analogy between the Staphylinida and
the Histeridce, 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 sys-
tems 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 en-
thusiastic 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

140

BRITISH BEES.

undertake systematic study, by showing how interest-
ing 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 dis-
tribution, 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 super-
ficially, 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, con-
junctively 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 unex-
plored 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 con-
struction 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 obser-
vations show that there is a higher knowledge connected

PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 141

with the pursuit than this mere knowledge of species,
and yet from which it emanates. There is a higher
object to he achieved than the accumulation of a store
of them, arranged in seemly order, set with manifest
taste, and named in accordance with the accepted no-
menclature. 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 ex-
hausted, perfection cannot be attained.

The many kinds of knowledge which the study sub-
serves, and the recreation and pleasure each affords, are
a sufficient reply to the sneering Cui bono ? of its detrac-
tors, 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 pur-
suit 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 reli-
gion, 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 ?

142

CHAPTER VII.

BEIEF NOTICE OF THE SCIENTIFIC CULTIVATION
OF BEITISH BEES.

WITH the great JOHN RAY dawns the scientific cultiva-
tion of British bees. Before his time, the only entomo-
logical 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.

SCIENTIFIC CULTIVATION OF BRITISH BEES. 143

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 — LINN^US. 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 deter-
mination.

Mr. Kirby was able to identify and introduce into his
synonymy only a few of Ray's insects, from the defec-
tiveness of the descriptions ; the following embrace all
that could be verified : —

No. 1 of the Apes silvestres is our Anthidium man-
calum ; No. 3, the male of Anthophora retusa, the fe-
male 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 ;

144 BRITISH BEES.

the seventh is the male of Osmia bicornis ; and the ninth
the celebrated Megachile Willuyhbiella.

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 j No. 7 is the male of B. lapi-
darius ; No. 8 is B. pratorum ; No. 9 is B. sijlvarum ;
No. 10 is B. subinterruptus ; No. 11 is B. hortorum ; No.
13 is B. Francillonellus, and No. 17 is Apathus Barbu-
tdlus. 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. Strag-
glers 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 collec-
tions 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.

The diligence he himself exercised in procuring all the
individuals he possibly could, by continued collecting
during a succession of years, enabled him, in the course
of time, to add considerably to those he was already
acquainted with, either in collections, or through dis-
persed notices. The growing bulk of his store suggested

SCIENTIFIC CULTIVATION OF BRITISH BEES. 145

his looking around for guides to their methodical ar-
rangement, as a clue to what might have been observed
of their habits. Finding no such assistance, and no-
thing to meet his wants, for Linnajus's notices were too
few, and Fabricius's labours too inconsequential, he de-
termined to aid himself by elaborating their distribution
upon the basis of the principles established by Fabricius
himself, but which this celebrated entomologist had worked
out so inconclusively as to make his system an indigested

•/ V

mass heaped together in the greatest disorder.

Mr. Kirby's patience and diligence, although working
only upon the same principle, speedily brought into
lucidity and order the obscurity and confusion that had
prevailed. By one of those strange coincidences which
have been remarkably recurrent in scientific invention
and discovery, Latreille, in France, was at the same
time arranging all the bees known to him, by a process
precisely similar to that adopted by Mr. Kirby. He
consequently arrived at exactly the same results, with
this difference only, that what Mr. Kirby calls genera
are to Latreille sub-families, and the sections which
Mr. Kirby was induced to form in his genera, from
their structural differences, and which sections he called
families, inconveniently indicating them merely by
letters, asterisks, and numbers, were formed by Latreille
into genera, and to which the latter either applied or
adopted names, or framed new ones, when deficient; these
however are essentially genera, with all their discrimina-
tive characteristics, for they bring together the very same
species in both cases. This clearly exhibits the beauty
and certainty of the principle upon which each had
worked out his distribution, both being based chiefly
upon the structure of the trophi, or the organs of the

L

]46 BRITISH BEES.

mouth, but which Fabricius, its projector, had, singu-
larly enough, failed to accomplish successfully.

Both works were published in the same year, 1802
(An X. of Latreille's book), unknown to each other,
but Mr. Kirby's sprang into life in matured perfection,
like the imago of the bee itself, whereas Latreille's
labours were progressively nursed to maturity in succes-
sive publications, until they received their final elabora-
tion in 1809, in the fourth volume of his ' Genera
Crustaceorum et Insectorum/ whose successive stages
were, first, the notice appended at the end of his ' Histoire
desFourmis' in Paris in 1801, and then in the thirteenth
volume of his ' Histoire Naturelle des Insectes/ in 1805,
a supplement to Sonnini's edition of Buffon, and then in
the ' Nouveau Dictionnaire d' Histoire Naturelle.' Even
thus the subject was not so amply discussed, although
applied more extensively, and made to embrace all the
bees, exotic as well as European, at that time known, as
it had been done in Mr. Kirby's model work, which
leaves nothing to be desired but the naming of his
anonymous subdivisions, and a little more artistical skill
in the execution of his plates. The terminology used
by him also differs from that subsequently adopted
through foreign influences, but which is readily reduced
to his standard.

The merits of the work greatly transcend these trivial
deficiencies, for it is a "canon" as invaluable to the
entomologist as the celebrated canon of Polycletus was,
and the Phidian marbles still are to sculptors. Of course
observation has greatly reduced the number of his species
by their due association with legitimate partners, which,
from their dissimilarity, he was compelled to separate,
as only successive observation could prove their identity.

SCIENTIFIC CULTIVATION OF BRITISH BEES. 147

More extensive collecting has also shown that some of
his species are merely varieties of others, which have
thus been brought to their authentic type. This also
could only be proved by experience, for it is remarkable
how very Protean some species are, whilst others are
almost rigidly unchangeable. Evidently there does exist
a line of demarcation between distinct species, which
only requires to be diligently sought to be found,
obscure as it may appear to be, but which the insects
themselves obey, for however closely species may some-
times approximate, yet I do not believe, as I have before
expressed, that they ever permanently coalesce, and that
they are always as distinctly separate as are asymptotes.

As Mr. Kirby's work is in few hands, or perhaps not
readily accessible, I will give here a summary outline of
it, with the names of the genera with which his families
coincide.

In this work he established only two named genera —
Melitta and Apis.

His genus Melitta, which is equivalent to the subse-
quent subfamily Andrenidce, he divides into two sections,
* and * *, the first containing two families, a and b, (these
we call genera, and they -are now named Colletes and
Prosopis) ; the second section * * contains three fami-
lies, a, b, c, (a, is Sphecodes, b, Halictus, and c comprises
our three genera, Andrena. Cilissa, and Dasypoda.}

His genus Apis he also divides into two sections, *
and * * ; the first is subdivided into two families, a and
b (our genera Panurgus and Nomada) ; and the second
is divided into five subsections, a, b, c, d, e ; a and b
constitute families (our genera Melecta and Epeolus).
The subsection c is divided into two parts, 1 and 2,
the first containing the two divisions a and /3, each

L

148 BRITISH BEES.

comprising a family (our genera Ccelioxys and Stelis) ;
and the second is divided into the four families, a, ft, 7,
8, (a being the modern Megachile ; /3, Anthidium; 7,
Ckelostoma and Heriades conjunctively, and 8 is our
Osmia) . The subsection d has two subdivisions, 1 and
2, the first being a family (our Eucera) ; and the se-
cond is divided into the two families a and /3 (a com-
prising our Saropoda, Anthophora, and Ceratina), and
the family /3, consisting of the genus Xylocopa, then
supposed to be indigenous, but whose native occurrence
has not been substantiated.

The fifth subsection, e, is split into two divisions, 1
and 2, each containing a family (1 is our Apis, and 2,
our Bombus) .

In this last of his families Mr. Kirby had already
noticed, with the same sagacity with which he had pre-
viously conjectured the cuckoo-like habits of some of
the solitary bees, the distinctive structure of some of the
species, which incapacitated them from providing the
sustenance of their own young, and which thus reduced
them to the same category ; but he left the idea in its
supposititious condition, being too modest to use it as a
mark of separation, but which Newman, on our side of
the Channel, and St. Fargeau on the other side, subse-
quently, and both nearly about the same time, but with
the advantage in favour of Newman, distinguished, and
separated generically, respectively by the names of Apa-
thus and Psithyrus ; the former, having the priority, is
adopted, according to the rights of precedence in nomen-
clature.

The above description of Mr. Ivirby's system Avill
perhaps be difficult to understand, unless T append the
naked scheme itself, which is as follows : —

SCIENTIFIC CULTIVATION OF BRITISH BEES. 149

MELITTA.

£. ("Family a.
I b.

* %

„ a.
b.

„

c.

APIS.

f Family a.

L „ b.

• Subsection a. Family «.

b.

/Family a.
/3.

„

„

Mr. Kirby could scarcely have considered that there
were more than two series of equivalents in this scheme;
the first being the great division into the two genera ;
and the second, the final division, where his analysis
terminated in his families, which, with some further
slight subdivision, as shown above, constitute our pre-
sent genera. The synthetical combinations which the
arrangement presents, as we ascend from his families,
result from an almost arbitrary selection of characters

150 BRITISH BEES.

and certainly are not equivalents. The whole method is
very perplexing ; for, to cite an insect for the purpose of
making a communication, it would have to be preceded
by its whole array of subdivisions. Thus Meyachile Wil-
lughbiella, which is now so compendiously noticed by
the binomial system, would have to be quoted as Apis
* * c, 2, a, IVillughkidla, and so with the rest.

Although I have strongly applauded the ' Monographia
Apum Auglise/ as an excellent treatise wherever I have
had an opportunity, the praise is to be applied to the
correct care with which both the family descriptions and
the specific descriptions are elaborated; whilst Mr.
Kirby's timidity in fearing to depart from the course of
his masters, Liunseus and JFabricius, by establishing a
multitude tof genera unrecognized by their authority,
although every one of his families is pertinently a well-
constituted genus, is much to be deplored. He has thus
lost the fame of naming the offspring, of which, although
legitimately the parent, he was not the sponsor. But
lie has won the higher renown, as I have elsewhere
remarked, of his work being a canon of entomological
perfection.

Notwithstanding that this very elaborate, and, to
some extent, artificial method is based upon a plurality
of characters, and apparently upon such as most readily
presented themselves to substantiate the feasibility of
subdivision indicated by habit, it is very remarkable in
having brought the series into more satisfactory sequence
than that presented by Latreille and his modifiers.
Panurgus here holds its permanent post as the connect-
ing link between the Apidce and Andrenidae, pointed out
by nature in its close resemblance to Dasypoda. But
this genus, however, establishes for itself a stronger

SCIENTIFIC CULTIVATION OF BRITISH BEES. 151

affinity to the Apidce, exclusively of that presented by
the folding of the tongue in repose, in its presenting
immediately the large development of the labial palpi
which is peculiarly characteristic of this subfamily.

All the cuckoo bees then follow in order; these are
succeeded by the true Dasyyasters ; after which come
Latreille's ScopuUpedes ; and the series is wound up by
Apis and Bombus.

Mr. Kirby, I suppose, was induced to associate in the
same section Panurgus and Nomada, from their resem-
blance in general habit, which in both conforms to the
type predominant in the Andrenidae, although they are
thence dislocated by the differences in the important
organs of the mouth, which verify in this case the seem-
ing paradox of a part being greater than the whole ; for
these are certainly of greater relative importance to the
economy of the creature than mere general habit, and
to which all the peculiarities of structure finally converge,
for the purpose of giving it what it thence acquires, its
own proper and distinctive place in the series of created
beings.

The most extensive work since published upon bees
generally, is that treating of t\\e Hymenoptera universally,
written by Le Pelletier de St. Fargeau, and comprised
in four thick octavo volumes, contained in the ' Suites a
Buffon.' In this work both the genera and species of our
bees occur, of course conjunctively with the rest, but its
utility, especially to the beginner, is materially diminished
by the peculiar systematic views of the author. The dis-
tribution of the Order is framed chiefly upon the eco-
nomy of the insects, which is not so tangible as structure,
and blends very heterogeneous forms, — widely separa-
ting, in some cases, structural affinities, and sometimes

152 BRITISH BEES.

uniting discordant habits. Wasps and bees we here find
intermingled, and to commence study with this work
would much perplex the student. It can be used bene-
ficially only when some progress has been made in the
pursuit.

The only British entomologists who have treated of
the bees since the time of Air. Kirby, are Stephens,
Curtis, Westwood, and Smith, — the first in his elaborate
' Catalogue of British Insects/ published in 1829 ; and
the second in his ' Guide to the Arrangement of British
Insects,' published in 1837. The arrangement of the
family of bees in both these works is exceedingly arbi-
trary and without any obvious reason, either as regards
the consecutive order of the genera or species. This
originated possibly in their personal rivalry, which led
them to make their systems as dissimilar as they could,
and as unlike the true order as they could well dispose
them. Both arrangements are certainly far beneath
criticism.

In the Synopsis of Westwood, at the end of his ' Guide
to the Classification of Insects/ published in 184-0, and
in Smith's ' Catalogue of the British Bees, contained in
the Collections of the British Museum/ published in
1855, we have Latreille's distribution, with slight modi-
fications, to which I shall not advert at present, but
which I shall discuss in my next chapter, where I shall
introduce the arrangement I myself propose for the
combination of the genera of British bees.

153

CHAPTER VIII.

A NEW ARRANGEMENT OF BRITISH BEES, WITH ITS
RATIONALE, AND AN INTRODUCTION TO THE FAMILY,
SUBFAMILIES, SECTIONS, AND SUBSECTIONS.

IF perfection of instinct, and an organization exquisitely
moulded to a complete adaptation to the many delicate
and varied functions of that instinct, as well as to the
exercise of every faculty incidental to the class, be cer-
tainly a proof of pre-eminence, we may justly claim this
position for the Order Hymenoptera. There is no cha-
racteristic in which they are deficient, nor any in which
some of the members of the Order do not transcend in
aptitude the insects of all the others.

If they have not been placed at the head of the class
Itisecta, it has been because systematic convenience did
not permit the transposition, on account of the inter-
ruption it would have caused to the convenient linking
of the rest in a consecutive arrangement. Yet are they
the most volatile fliers, the most agile runners, the most
skilful burrowers, and consummate architects.

The beauty resulting from the combinations of sym-
metry of form, elegance of motion, brilliancy of colour,
aud vivacity of expression, is to be found exclusively

154 BRITISH BEES.

amongst them. Either in the velocity of their flight, or
in its playful evolutions and graceful undulations, they
are unsurpassed, and they hover in the execution of their
designs with pertinacious perseverance. No insect struc-
ture can more thoroughly exemplify the most appropriate
adaptation to its uses, and the most admirable elegance
in the formation of the means of execution.

I thus claim for them, and which I think I may with-
out infraction of dispute, the distinctive rank amongst
insects.

Having fixed the station of the Hymenoptera generally,
we have next to seek the relative rank of the natural
divisions into which they readily separate.

Taking structure and instinct conjunctively, there can
be no doubt that the first position will be conceded to
that division of the Order which comprises the aculeated
tribes — those armed with stings, — some of whose mem-
bers, in each of the three large divisions into which they
fall, being social, that is, living in communities, orga-
nized by a peculiar polity or administration.

These aculeates divide into, first, the fossorial Hyme-
noptera, or burrowers; and the equivalent branch the
Diploptera, or wasps, distinguished and named from
their folding the superior wings longitudinally in repose ;
secondly, the heterogeneous Hymenoptera, or ants, named
from the dissimilarity either in size or structure of their
females, a peculiarity incidental to all the social Hyme-
noptera, but living in community is more peculiarly cha-
racteristic of this division, it being in the other divisions
restricted to a few genera only, whereas here the soli-
tary habit is the exceptional. In all cases of socialism
there are three classes of individuals, — males, females,
and abortive females. In the other social kinds of

NEW ARRANGEMENT OF BRITISH BEES. 155

Hymenoptera, these abortive females, called neuters, per-
form the labours of the community, and they are always
winged; whereas amongst the ants they are never
winged, and they constitute civil and military depart-
ments, the former attending to domestic matters, and
the latter making predatory excursions to enslave the
inhabitants of other communities, to aid their civilians
in their many duties.

The third and last division of the aculeate Hyme-
noptera contains the Mellicolliyerae , the bees, or honey -
gatherers.

Thus each division of the aculeated Hymenoptera is
closely linked to the others by the strong affinity of the
social habits of some of the genera of their several
families.

The food of these three divisions of the aculeated
Hymenoptera differs considerably, the Fossores being
raptorial flesh-feeders, which hunt down and destroy
their prey, and supply it as food to their young; the
Heterogytice are omnivorous, — grain, fruits, or carrion
being equally welcome to them ; but in these climates
I am not aware that they destroy life, although their
wide migrations within the tropics are undertaken in
the very spirit of the Huns and Vandals, for they de-
vastate everything they come across; but the whole
family of bees are exclusively honey-feeders without any
carnivorous propensities, and use their stings merely as
weapons of defence.

Although all the social aculeates are edifiers, and
although the wasp in its papier mdche domicile may vie
with the honey-bee in capacity and skill in the structure
of the hexagons of the habitation it erects or suspends,
which are as perfect, and almost as delicate, although

156 BRITISH BEES.

fabricated of a coarser material than those within the
hive, and wherein also the several compartments form a
more homogeneous unity, and the uniformity of the
several layers or floors is more in accordance with archi-
tectural symmetry, — yet must the palm of precedence
be accorded to the bee, from the more elaborate and per-
fect development of the social instinctive faculty.

We may be the more excused for this preference
when we weigh the interest of the genus Apis to man.
The wasp boots us nothing, but is the pilferer of our
fruits, and a marauder upon the hive, whose inhabitants
it destroys and consumes their produce, it being in-
different to them which they obtain — the bee or the
honey, — either furnishing them with sustenance. The
ant is obtrusive and incommodious, making incursions
upon the pantry, the store-room, the green-house, and
the hot-house; disfiguring our flower-beds, and often
disgusting us with our aliment by the impertinent in-
trusion of its appearance. But the bee stores up for us
honey, whose cruses are as inexhaustible as the oil cruse
of the good widow of Zarephath, and whose waxen shards
furnish us with a beautifully soft light, which in Ca-
tholic worship adds solemnity to the rites of religion.
In doing this the bee fulfils a sovereign function in the
economy of nature, by the fertilization of the flower-
ing plants, with which she reciprocates benefits; the
preponderance, however, is importantly in favour of the
flower.

If captious objectors should dispute the position we
thus claim for the bees, we will willingly leave them the
wasp with its sting, whilst we sedulously cultivate the
active and industrious bee, whose associations range
through all the fields of poetry, but nowhere more lusci-

NEW ARRANGEMENT OF BRITISH BEES. 157

ously than in the beautiful compositions of the Sanskrit
poets Kalidasa and Yayadeva.

The position of the family, whose English constituents
I shall subsequently treat of, being thus fixed, I have
next to explain the several subdivisions into which it is
divided in the following arrangement.

I am prompted to propose this new distribution of the
British bees, by the manifest imperfection of the several
arrangements of them already extant. The defects of
these systems I shall have occasion to exhibit in refer-
ence to the course I have been induced to take.

Mr. Kirby's keenness of observation led him to sur-
mise, from the absence of polliniferous brushes upon
the posterior legs, or other parts of the body of some,
that there might be a class of bees analogous to the
cuckoo, amongst the birds, who did not rear their own
young, or undertake any of the cares of maternity ; but
that led by a peculiar instinct they deposited their eggs
in the nests of more laborious kinds, for their young to
be nurtured upon the provision laid up in store by the
latter for the supply of their own progeny. This being
merely a supposition, Mr. Kirby made no use of it in the
distribution of his families.

Observation has since confirmed the conjecture, and
the fact lends material aid to the combination of the
bees into detached groups, and which has been partially
applied since by all systematizers.

Conjunctively with the assistance derived from this
circumstance, the various modes whereby pollen is col-
lected and conveyed, either on the legs or on the belly,
further facilitates the grouping of the family. Other
structural or economical peculiarities lend their aid, and
although the arrangement primarily emanates from the

158 BRITISH BEES.

differences in the formation of the tongue., these are cor-
roborated by differences in other organs, and the general
distribution, as well as the special combinations, all re-
sult from natural characteristics.

The simplicity of the arrangement thus effected is
very striking; and we thus find all the bees having
similar habits, and with a similar structure united to-
gether by it in distinct groups.

I will here insert my scheme, and exhibit why and
in what it differs from those of my predecessors ; and,
where necessary, I shall append such observations upon
the several methods extant, as will sufficiently show the
necessity, and vindicate the introduction of a new one.

FAMILY MELLICOLLIGEE^ (Honey-collectors).

Subfamily 1. ANDE.ENIDJB (Subnormal Bees).

Section 1. With lacerate par aglossoe.
Subsection «. WITH EMAEGINATE TONGUES.

Genus 1. COLLETES.
„ 2. PROSOPIS.

Subsection 6. WITH LANCEOLATE TONGUES.

Genus 3. SPHECODES.
„ 4*. ANDRENA.
„ 5. CILISSA.

Section 2. With entire paraglossce.
Subsection c. WITH ACITTE TONGUES.

Genus 6. HALICTUS.

„ 7. MACROPIS.

8. DASYPODA.

NEW ARRANGEMENT OF BRITISH BEES. 159

Subfamily 2. APID^E (Normal Bees).

Section 1. Solitary.
Subsection 1. SCOPTTLIPEDES (brush-legged).

a. Femoriferce (collectors on the entire leg) .

f With two submarginal cells.

Genus 9. PANURGUS.

b. CrurifercB (collectors on the shank only).

f With tivo submarginal cells.

Genus 10. EUCERA.

ft With three submarginal cells.

Genus 11. ANTHOPHORA.
„ 12. SAROPODA.
„ 13. CERATINA.

Subsection 2. NUDIPEDES (naked-legged).
a. With three submarginal cells.

Genus 14. NOMADA.
„ 15. MELECTA.
„ 16. EPEOLUS.

b. With two submarginal cells.

Genus 17. STELIS.
„ 18. CCELIOXYS.

Subsection 3. DASTGASTEES (liairy-bellied).
All with tivo submarginal cells.

Genus 19. MEGACHILE.
,, 20. ANTHIDIUM.
„ 21. CHELOSTOMA.
„ 22. HERIADES.
„ 23. ANTHOCOPA
„ 24. OSMIA.

160 BRITISH BEES.

Section 2. Cenolites (Dwellers in Community).

Subsection 1. SPUEEED.

t Parasitica^.

Genus 25. APATHUS.

ft Collectors.
Temporarily social.

Genus 26. BOMBUS.

«

Subsection 2. UNSPITBBED.

Permanently social.

Genus 27. APIS.

The primary division of the bees into two large
branches, viz. into the Andrenidce, or abnormal bees,
and the Apidae, or normal bees, is effected by the mode
in which they fold the cibarial apparatus in repose.
In the description of the structure of the imago, I have
enlarged upon these organs, and for their explanation I
must refer to that chapter where diagrams exhibit the
structure of the different kinds of trophi of the bees, as
well as their mode of folding. Here it is only necessary
to notice that in the Andrenidce, the joint at the base
draws back the basal portion when protruded, and this
basal portion is further jointed at the point of the in-
sertion of the paraglossse and labial palpi, and parallel
with which joint the maxillae are likewise jointed close
to the sinus where the maxillary palpi are inserted
laterally upon it. The basal portion thus throws the
anterior part forward or retracts it, at the will of the
insect, and in the latter case, being then in repose, it lies
in contiguous parallelism to the basal half, but beneath
it. When thus withdrawn, the short tongue itself, with
its paraglossse and labial palpi are sheltered beneath the

NEW ARRANGEMENT OF BRITISH BEES. 161

coping of the labrum and the lateral protection of the
mandibles, whilst the horny sheathing of the maxillae
protect the softer parts folding underneath.

In the Apid(B, or normal bees, the basal joint has the
same action in withdrawing the entire organ into its
place of rest; but the joint which gives it this power is
not in an analogous situation to that in the Andrenidce,
for it is seated short of the joint which lies at <the base
of the several organs of the cibarial apparatus. By
bending these downwards, it carries their apex back-
wards towards the basal fulcrum through the action of
these two joints, and, when there, the more delicate
ones are protected from abrasion or injury, by the lateral
overlapping of the horny skin of the maxillae. All being
thus withdrawn within this covering, upon the joint
which folds them back, seated at the base of the tongue,
the labrum falls, and further to strengthen this protec-
tion, the mandibles close over it like forceps.

That this difference in the arrangement of the cibarial
apparatus points to any distinctive peculiarities of eco-
nomy has not been ascertained, for the habits of the Sco-
pulipedes greatly resemble those of the Andrenidts ; al-
though the habits of one of them, Ant hop hor a fur cat a,
are remarkably like those of the foreign genus Xylocopa,
in its mode of drilling wood. But the Apidce have cross
affinities amongst themselves, thus Ceratina resembles
Heriades, and some of the Osmice, in the way in which
it nidificates.

The tongues of the Andrenidce are always shorter,
broader, and natter than those of the Apidte, in which
they are always long, cylindrical, and tapering. In the
first section of the Andrenidce, the paraglossre are ob-
tusely terminated at the apex, thence called lacerated,

M

162 BRITISH BEES.

and where they are fringed with brief bristles. The
peculiar form of the tongue in this section suggests its
being separated into two subsections, that organ being in
the first subsection very broad and bilobated, which gives
those insects their position in the series by approximating
them to the preceding family of the Diploptera, or
wasps, whose tongues have the same bilobate form, but
each lobe in them is furnished with a gland. These
tongues, in both cases of the wasps and these bees, may
conduce to the building or plastering habits of the in-
sects. The form may aid the wasp arid the Colletes,
the first in the moulding of its hexagonal papier-mache
cells, as it may the second in shaping and embroidering
the silk-lined abode of its embryonic progeny. Why
Prosopis should have this organization is difficult to
conceive, unless it be from an analogy of structure inci-
dentally previously referred to, beyond which any special
object has hitherto escaped detection.

In the second section of the Andrenidce, which have
the paraglossse entire and terminating in a point, the
tongues all also terminate acutely with a lateral incli-
nation inwards. In the lanceolate-tongued tribe they
bulge outwards laterally, although pointed at the apex.

All this subfamily of Andrenida, excepting only the
two genera reputed parasites, viz. Prosopis and Sphe-
codes, are essentially Scopulipedes, densely brush-legged,
for the conveyance of pollen which they vigorously
collect ; but from the brevity of their tongues they are
restricted to flowers with shallow petals and apparent
nectaria, their favourite plants being the abounding
Composites and UmbeUiferte, as well as the Rosaccee,
whence they derive the agreeable odours which many of
them emit upon being captured.

NEW ARRANGEMENT OF BRITISH BEES. 163

Their peculiar mode of collecting is a further reason
for bringing the brush-legged Apldce collectively to the
top of the normal bees, in juxtaposition to the Andre-
nidce, where the transition is made very naturally from
Dusypoda to Panurgus.

The whole of the cibarial apparatus, or trophi, is
always complete in all its constituent parts throughout
the Andrenidte ; and it is only with Ceratina, in the
group of scopuliped Apidce, that it begins to show the
tendency it has to abnormal deficiencies, by the para-
glossse, in that genus, being obsolete. This charac-
teristic, then, exhibits itself in the Nudlpedes with two
submarginal cells who are parasitical upon the Dasy-
gasters, in whom also the maxillary palpi participate in
a deficiency in the authentic number of their joints,
whilst in Apis both maxillary palpi and paraglossse are
unapparent. This shows that the numerical completion
of the organs of the mouth have nothing to do with the
qualifications of the creature, the best endowed in other
respects being thus curtailed, the final cause of which is
not yet understood.

The shape of the tongue itself thus separates the
Andrenidce into three well-defined divisions readily per-
ceptible. These, as I have just observed with respect to
the differences in the mode of closing the oral apparatus
in both cases, yield no clue to economy and habits, for
which observation must supervene to illustrate it. This,
patiently carried out, is very desirable, as it is still in
discussion whether, notwithstanding the elucidation
structure affords, Prosopis and Sphecodes are or are
not parasitical. Structure says they are, for, like the
cuckoo-bees forming the group Nudipedes in the Apidce,
they are destitute of the requisite apparatus for collect-

M 2

16 t BRITISH BEES.

ing pollen. Mr. Kirby, however, gives direct testimony
in favour of Sphecodes being a burrower, in the case of
which bee it ought not to be a matter of much difficulty
to determine, for on sandy plateaus I have occasionally
found it very abundant, especially where there was rag-
wort (Senecio) in flower in the vicinity, to which the
males resorted; but being at the time more intent on
other matters, I neglected the opportunity. Other ob-
servers concur with Mr. Kirby as regards Sphecodes,
and also say as much for Prosopls (better known as
Hylceus). I strongly incline to the opinion enunciated
by Latreille and Le Pelletier de St. Fargeau, that they
are parasites. My opinion is based upon peculiarities
in them other than, although strengthened by, the nega-
tive characteristic of absence of polliniferous organs. A
negative cannot be proved, it is true, yet what has been
positively asserted may as certainly result either from
defective observation, or from too strong a desire to find
no parasites among the Andrenidae. My reasons occur
elsewhere in this work, and I need not repeat them. It
is still an open question, and the young entomologist, if
entering the arena unprepossessed, might win his spurs
in determining it. It would be well worth the trouble
of attending to for those who have leisure, and if decided
in favour of the independency of these genera, which
must be corroborated by a plurality of observations, and
not confined to one locality, they would form strong and
remarkable instances of a defective analogy in nature's
workmanship, and suggest looking further for the causes
of so extraordinary an anomaly, and urge us to endea-
vour to trace the equivalent which supersedes it.

The main subdivision of the Apidce results from the
habits of the insects, which divides them into SOCIAL

NEW ARRANGEMENT OF BRITISH BEES. 165

and SOLITARY. The only tangible characters the social
tribes present to distinguish them from the solitary is
the glabrous surface of the posterior tibise, with their
lateral edges fringed with bristles slightly curved in-
wards, and which form, with the slightly indented sur-

•

face of the limb, a sort of natural basket for the convey-
ance of pollen or other stores to the nest. This, how-
ever, has not been made use of as a main feature for
scientific distribution, although they might follow the
Dasygasters, as corbiculated bees, or little basket bearers,
in which case they would form as pertinent a group as
any of the rest, and the whole distribution of the bees,
Apidffi, would then rest upon the absence of, or the
mode in which the polliniferous organs were present.
But the wonderful attribute of their extraordinary in-
stinct prohibits their being treated with the rest in a
consecutive line, and renders it rationally imperative
that all the Cenobites should group together in a section
by themselves, and separate from the rest. Therefore
in my arrangement I have not availed myself of this
very natural character, and here indicate it, to show that
I have not passed it from not noticing it.

Although the division into social and solitary yields in
itself no tangible character whereby the insects may be
separated, it being wholly empirical, yet is it so natural
and necessary that it is impossible to gainsay it. We find
the solitary section readily resolve itself into groups or
subsections, determined by positive structural characters,
indicative of certain habits, and having a conforming
economy, besides which they are equivalents.

Thus the first subsection presents us with the brush-
legged Apidce (Scopulipedes) , which collect pollen upon
their posterior legs. These are further subdivided into

166 BRITISH BEES.

those which collect it upon the whole limb, viz. the coxa,
the femur, the tibia, and first joint of the tarsus, (the
femoriferce), and those which gather it merely upon the
shank and basal joint of the foot (the cruriferte) . These
collectively form a well-defined group, and why Panur-
gus should be separated from the brush-legged bees,
when it is a most conspicuous instance of the faculty,
even more so than any other of the Scopulipedes, I have
yet to learn. It is true its mode of collecting closely
resembles that practised by the Andrenidae , as does also
the furniture for the purpose of its posterior legs, but
being essentially collocated with the Apidae or normal
bees by its tongue, it fittingly links itself to the other
brush -legged Apida (which have hitherto been placed be-
tween the Dasygasters and the Social Bees), by means of
the genus Eucera, by reason of its two submarginal cells,
the structure of its maxillary palpi, its mode of burrow-
ing, and by each being infested by a similar parasite — •
a Nomada, which in accommodation to the size of the
sitos is the largest of the genus. Nomada does not
occur as a parasite upon any other of the brush-legged
bees, or indeed upon any other of the true bees at all,
which peculiarity brings these two genera into close
contiguity to all non-parasitical Andrenidce, all of which
have their legs furnished with polliniferous brushes, and
upon which subfamily, exclusively of these two instances
of Panurgus and Eucera, Nomada is solely parasitical.

With respect to the two submarginal cells to the
wings, nature must have some reason for the limitation,
for we find it prevalent also throughout the Dasyyasters,
or hairy-bellied bees.

The next very natural group is consistently central.
It comprises the cuckoo- bees, which are naked-legged

NEW ARRANGEMENT OF BRITISH BEES. 167

(Nudlpedes), by reason of their parasitism, they not re-
quiring organs to collect what they have no occasion
to use. Their parasitism extends both upwards and
downwards, those with three submarginal cells being
parasitical upon all the brush-legged bees, whether sub-
normal Andrenida or the Scopulipedes, those with two
submarginal cells being restricted in their parasitism to
the Dasyy asters.

These Dasyyasters, or hairy-bellied bees, form the
next very natural group. Their general peculiarity of
structure I have had occasion to advert to, in treating,
in a former section of the work, upon the structure of
the imago, and to which I now refer to avoid repetition.
This group contains the majority of the artisan bees,
whose habits I shall particularize when I speak of the
genera specially; but we find carpenters amongst the
Scopulipedes, and essentially builders amongst the Ceno-
bites, which form a further and the last of our natural
groups. A true cuckoo-bee (Apathus) consorts amongst
these Cenobites, and properly so, from many causes.
The anomaly would have been too great to have removed
it to a place amongst the Nudipedes, for although in
obsolete paraglosste, and in a deficiency in the normal
number of the joints of the maxillary palpi, it resembles
some of these, its general habit and general structure,
bating that controlled by its parasitical habits, are so
like Bombus, that it cannot well be separated far from
the latter, — especially as we know too little of its habits
to say that it does not regularly dwell in the nest of its
sitos, which may well mistake it for one of its own com-
munity, it resembling the species it infests so closely ;
it therefore consistently associates systematically with
the temporarily social societies.

168 BRITISH BEES.

Having thus cursorily skimmed the surface of the
method I suggest, I have next to give my reasons for
proposing it in lieu of adopting any yet extant.

My exhibition of Kirby's grouping, in the preceding
section, where I treat of the scientific cultivation of
British bees, will fully explain why I could not adopt
that arrangement.

Why I cannot follow Latreille's, is, that in his last
elaboration, in his ' Families Naturelles/ published in
1825, which must be considered as his final view, he
does not satisfactorily divide the Andrenidae, of the ge-
nera of which he has made a complete jumble. With the
Apida in his group of Dasygasters, he intermixes Cera-
t'ma, separating it from the group of Scopulipedes, where
it truly belongs by every characteristic, and he mingles
also with them the two cuckoo genera Stelis and Cceli-
oxys, which are merely parasites upon these Dasygasters,
and can only be associated by the structural conformity
of the two submarginal cells to the superior wings, and
the length of the labrum, the latter being a character of
very secondary importance ; and further, he dissevers the
Scopulipedes in placing Panurgus at the commencement
of the Apidce, and the rest proximate to the social bees.

Westwood, in his modification of Latreille's system,
certainly divides the Andrenidae better than his master
had done, but he does not go far enough. Besides, he
interposes Halictus and Lasioglossum, (the latter ad-
mitted as a genus merely out of courtesy to Curtis, who
had elevated it to that rank in his ( British Entomology/
although it is nothing more than a male Halictus] ,
between Sphecodes and Andrena with Cilissa, these
having lanceolate tongues with lacerate paraglossse,
whereas Halictus has a very acute tongue, and its para-

NEW ARRANGEMENT OP BRITISH BEES. 169

glossse are entire, as is also the case with Dasypoda,
from which Halictus is thus divided. In the Apidae,
he does not separate the cuckoo-bees, but with Latreille
intermixes Ccslioxys and Stelis with the artisan-bees,
although without retaining Latreille's convenient and
suitable name of Dasygasters, for this group of mecha-
nics. The same objection I take to his Scopulipedes as
that expressed above, relative to Latreille's.

Precisely the same fault I find with the Andrenidoe of
Smith, as that urged above with respect to West wood's.
He is more careful with his Apidte, his Cuculince being
all genuine parasites, but he includes Ceratina with the
Daaygasters, with which it has no affinity of structure,
and only a slight analogy in the form merely of its ab-
domen without its hairiness beneath, to that of Osmia,
from whose proximity he takes it to place it near
Heriades, when it is certainly intimately allied in every
respect with the Scopulipedes, and by reason of its sub-
clavate antennae might suitably be brought into juxta-
position with Panuryus, did not its obsolete paraglossse
and three submarginal cells interfere with its occupying
this position. To his Scopulipedes the same objection
is valid as that taken to Latreille's and Westwood's dis-
position of them. Amongst the social bees he separates
Bombus from Apis, by the intervention of Apathus,
which is scarcely consistent.

It is in no spirit of captiousness that these objections
are made; they are deduced from collocations whose
conspicuous incoherence is patent to the most superficial
observation. The distribution I have here introduced
has been made merely to ameliorate, and make more
cogent, what was so palpably defective and feeble.

170

CHAPTER IX.

A TABLE, EXHIBITING A METHOD OF DETERMINING
THE GENERA OF BRITISH BEES WITH FACILITY.

THE following table is constructed exclusively to facili-
tate, by the most obvious characters, the recognition of
the several genera into which the family is divided ; it
will, however, be incumbent upon the learner to use
some diligence in order to acquire an accurate percep-
tion of their distinguishing characteristics.

By the present extremely artificial plan the systematic
sequence is disturbed ; but the numbers, which will be
found appended to the names in the table, will show
their orderly succession.

The natural generic character which precedes the ac-
count of each genus in the next division of the work will
give the reason, by comparison, of the order in which
"system" arranges them, and which being based mainly
upon the differences of the trophi, — although, conjunc-
tively with other characters, the trophi must necessarily
be studied for its explanation, — their description in the
description of the part of the imago is consequently re-
ferred to.

Did we know exactly the uses of the component parts

METHOD OF DETERMINING GENERA. 171

of the troplii severally, we should be better able to de-
termine the legitimacy of applying them to the purpose
of indicating the natural generic character, but being
compelled, by reason of our ignorance of their several
special functions, to avail ourselves of their form, relative
proportions, and number only, uncertainty of having
caught the clue of nature's scheme must of necessity
attend this distribution.

But as what we do know of their uses in this family
clearly indicates them to be an essential instrument
indispensable to the economy of the insect, and which
gives these organs an almost paramount importance,
their comparative construction in the several genera
would yield clear notions of the true order of succession,
were we acquainted with the relative significancy of the
various portions of the entire organ. Thus we see it
numerically most complete in what we are pleased to
suppose the least genuine bees — the Andrenidee.

In my series of the genera proposed in the preceding
section, with the Nudiped true bee Melecta commences
a deficiency of either some of the joints of the maxil-
lary palpi, or of the paraglossse ; — throughout the artisan
bees this abridgment is conspicuous both in number
and proportion ; and it culminates in what we consider
the facile princeps, that most wonderfully organized
of all insects — the genus Apis, which in its neuters has
neither paraglossse nor maxillary palpi, the latter being
equally deficient in the male or drone, and in the queen ;
and in both the male and the queen the paraglossse are
but rudimentary.

Nature appears too mysterious in her operations to
permit us to solve these remarkable anomalies, for no
combination of the genera founded exclusively upon them

172

BRITISH BEES.

supplies us with Ariadne's thread. Every such combi-
nation breaks up more harmonious groups, and we then
retrace our steps, satisfied that we are on the wrong
road.

In some other orders of insects the cibarial apparatus
has but little bearing upon the insect's mode of life, for
in many it is not used either for nutrition or in their
economy, or so slightly so as to admit of its being con-
sidered of very inferior importance, although systema-
tists — to enhance the value of their own labours, by the
frequent difficulty, from excessive minuteness, of its exa-
mination— have usually made it a prominent feature in
their arrangements.

That science has not widely strayed away from the
true succession and natural affinities by the main selec-
tion of the trophi for the arrangement of the bees, seems
partially confirmed by the gradations of form or habit
that this method of treatment in general exhibits. A
higher method doubtless exists, which would give form,
number, and proportion very inferior rank in ordering
the arrangement, but at present the clue to it has not
been discovered.

These questions are indeed beyond the scope of a
work of this character, which is merely a ladder to the
fruits of learning, and the bearing of them is only hinted
at to indicate that there is much exercise for the intelli-
gence in the study of even this small family. The mind
that would stop in the study of nature at the knowledge
of genera and species, can be very speedily satisfied, and
one bright spring day's successful collecting will furnish
the materials for much patient and industrious occu-
pation.

In nature we find all things apparently blended in the

METHOD OF DETERMINING GENERA. 173

grandest confusion ; but they all have mutual and re-
ciprocal bearings which give a definite purpose to the
seeming disorder, and which make each separate unit
the centre of all. But we, from our inability to grasp in
its fulness the order of this disorder, are obliged to seize
fragments and, separating them into what we conceive
to be their coherent elements, use them as exponents
of the entirety. They could not so exist in nature, but
would speedily die out, and it is only by the way in
which we find them intermingled, that they can be main-
tained. Thus, as all conduce to the conservation of each,
each conduces to the conservation of all.

A large collection of natural history, composed of
every available item that can be gathered from every
kingdom of nature's vast domain, may perhaps be com-
pared (magnis componere parva] with the constituent
parts of a most elaborately-constructed and complicated
clock, which its skilful artificer has designed and made
to record and chime the divisions of time, and to register
the days, weeks, months, and seasons, and which a
virtuoso having taken to pieces, has sorted into its details
of wheels and springs, levers and balances, chains, bells,
and hands, which told the time when its music would
peal; and arranging like to like, thinks he will thus
understand more clearly the complexity of the varied
movements. But, sadly disappointed, he finds he cannot
comprehend the combination of the intricate machinery,
although he singly admires the minute perfection of each
delicate and ingenious piece lying before him which
composed the structure, but which has now lost all
expression, his curiosity having deprived the organism of
its vitality, which is its most wonderful element.

And this is our process, for if we stop here we have

174 BRITISH BEES.

but an assortment of vapid machinery, no click of whose
wheels gives note of the vital hilarity of their relative
and combined effects. The final cause of creation
escapes us thus frittering it into details, which if we
merely abide by, we but loiter at the foot of Pisgah, in-
stead of ascending its summits to survey thence the
sunny and varied landscape, the glorious sea, and, arch-
ing over all, the blue cope of heaven. The manifold
relations of animate and inanimate nature, which, al-
though they must be studied in detail, are to be appre-
ciated in their entirety, should stimulate the efforts of
the naturalist to conquer all1 impending difficulties, and
he should not permit himself to be satisfied with this
preliminary knowledge.

Although the above be the inevitable effect of dis-
tributing nature into its component parts, it is the in-
dispensable precursor to the study, for the scientific
treatment is the only mode whereby, through special
study, we can arrive at the comprehension of the great
generality. We thus strive to trace the mode in which
each emanates from each ; and even when this is not
absolutely tangible we may discover affinities or analo-
gies by structural resemblances which implicitly lead to
physiological inferences, and thence on, higher and
higher, all lending us aid to make the larger survey,
wherein we behold the concatenation of the many links
which harmonize the spiritual with the material. But
the study must be thorough, and its details are not to
be spread out before us merely as a beautiful picture-
book. They all have their place in the great ordinance
of nature, which it is for us to find. At first we can
only spell the syllables, which the study of species puts
together for us, but by degrees we shall trace the words,

METHOD OF DETERMINING GENERA. 175

and read the sentences : a study more abstruse but far
more pregnant than that of the Egyptian hieroglyphics,
and whose attainment is rewarded with a supremer
knowledge than is accorded by these, which exhibit
merely the legends of dead despots; but here we have
a display of the vitality of the wisdom inscribed in
gleaming characters upon the leaves of the wonderful
book of life, God's glorious works, made manifest to
man.

Thus we should aim at the knowledge of final causes,
the apparent wisdom of whose adaptations points clearly
to the source of all — the first great Cause. A naturalist
with such large views has a wide field before him, which
with every step expands, and which alone is worthy of
engrossing the earnest attention of his intelligence, and
is in itself sufficient to absorb the profouudest contem-
plation. His mind becomes thus filled with great objects,
which charm it with their beauty and feed it with the
complexity of their intricate combinations, whose earnest
development is an affluent stream of perpetual instruc-
tive occupation. With Newton we may say : " We
everywhere behold simplicity in the means, but an inex-
haustible variety in the effects," resulting all from the
luminous wisdom of prearranged design.

The humiliation which attends the sentiment of the
utter inabilitjr and incompetency of the mind to grasp
the intricacy and vastness of nature, is consoled by the
redundant proofs the contemplation yields of a supreme
and benevolent Providence presiding over all things, and
thence we derive the comfortable and supporting assur-
ance, in the fickle waywardness and vicissitudes of a ha-
rassed and anxious life, that a benevolent eye is ever
watchfully awake ; for the naturalist everywhere beholds

176 BRITISH BEES.

that omnipotently wise and loving Providence in active
operation throughout nature.

No study like natural history, pursued in a humble
and docile spirit, so harmoniously elicits the religion of
the soul, or than which so fitly prepares it to enter, by
the pathway of the works of God, the august temple of
His revealed Word.

But to return : what we call science is the mere acci-
dence of nature, which in fact aggravates our infirmity
by permitting our intelligence to attempt to grasp,
through the various details, their intricate combinations.
But as truth sooner arises out of error if methodically
pursued, and its results recorded, than out of confusion
and guesswork, theories based upon observation, how-
ever inaccurate at first, ultimately lead up to the certain
acquisition of the truth itself.

AN EASY DISTEIBUTION OF THE BEES,

THE NUMBERS REFERRING TO THE SCIENTIFIC SERIES.

ANDRENID^E (Subnormal Bees).

TONGUE SHOETEE THAN THE MAXILLA, POEEECT.

Posterior tibiae clothed with hair to convey pollen.

Two submarginal cells.

Posterior legs very robust, pollini-
ferous hair on tibiae and plantae

dense but short MACEOPIS (7).

Posterior legs slender ; polliniferous
hair on femora, tibiae, and plantse
dense and very long DASTPODA (8).

METHOD OF DETERMINING GENERA. 177

Three submarginal cells to the wings.

Abdomen truncated at base . . . COLLETES (1).
Abdomen ovate.

Abdomen entire at apex ; maxil-
lary palpi as long or longer than

the maxillne AXDRENA (4).

Abdomen entire at apex ; maxil-
lary palpi half the length of the

maxillae CILISSA (5).

Abdomen with a vertical incision

at the apex HALICTUS (7/

Posterior tibia; without hair to convey pollen.
Two submarginal cells to the wings . PROSOPIS (L,.
Three submarginal cells to the wings . SPHECODES (3).

APID.E (Normal Bees).

TONGUE AS LONG OB LONGER THAN THE MAXILLA, IN-
FLECTED BENEATH, AND COVERED BY THE MAXILLA IN
REPOSE.

Without polliniferous organs.

Two submarginal cells to the wings.

Abdomen at apex rounded . . . STELTS (17).
Abdomen at apex conical .... CCELIOXTS (18).
Three submargiual cells to the wings.

Abdomen lanceolate NOMADA (14),

Abdomen subtruneate at base.

Abdomen obovate, thorax glabrous EPEOLUS (1G).
Abdomen subconical, thorax hir-
sute MELECTA (15).

Entire body densely hairy . . . APATHUS (25).

With polliniferous organs.

Pollen conveyed on the venter.

Two submarginal cells to the wings of all.

N

178

BRITISH BEES.

Abdomen snbclavate.

First three joints of labial palpi
continuous, terminal joint in-
serted before apex of third .
First two joints of labial palpi
continuous, two last inserted
before the apex of the second
Abdomen obovate, rounded at apex
Abdomen truncated at base.
Segments slightly constricted,
and not spotted with colour .
Segments not constricted,

spotted with yellow

Pollen conveyed on the posterior legs.

Two submargiual cells to the wings.

Abdomen lanceolate ; antennae

clavate ; posterior legs covered,

with long hair

Abdomen obovate ; antennae fili-
form ; posterior legs covered
densely with short hair .
Three submarginal cells to the wings.
Short dense hair on the whole pos-
terior tibiae externally.
Abdomen obovate ; first joint of
labial palpi twice as long as

second

Abdomen subrotund; first joint
of labial palpi six times as

long as the rest

Long hair, but loose, on the en-
tire posterior tibiae, exter-
nally and internally.
Abdomen subclavate ....
Curved hair fringing the edge only

CHELOSTOMA (21).

HERIADES (22).
OSMIA (24).

MEGACHILE (19).
ANTIIIDIUM (20).

PANURGUS (9).
EUCERA (10).

ANTHOPHORA (11).
SAROPODA (12),

CERATINA (13).

METHOD OF DETERMINING GENERA. 179

of the posterior tibiae, the

centime glabrous.
Body densely hirsute, spurs to

all the tibia? BOMBUS (26).

Body subpubescent, no spurs

to the posterior tibiae . . . APIS (27).

It will be desirable to add a few observations to the
preceding table to facilitate its use, and because, as
many of the characters upon which it is framed are ex-
clusively those of the female, it is necessary to point out
the differences of their males, that the sexes of the
genera may be duly recognized and associated.

It may be first noticed generally that the antennse,
in the males, are not usually geniculated at the scape,
which is nearly always the case in the opposite sex, and
they are also, with rare exceptions, always longer than
those of their females. In Colletes, Prosopis, Dasypoda,
Panurgus, Ceratina, Nomada, Melecta, Epeolus, Stelis,
and Anthidium, the habit or colouring of the males is
so similar to that of the females, that their genus may
be thus at once determined, and, in fact, the brief cha-
racters in the table will embrace them.

The male Eucera can be distinguished from those of
Anthophora and Saropoda, both by the differences in the
number of the submargiual cells of the wing, and by the
extreme length of its antennse, whence the genus derives
its name. In Andrena and CH'tssa, the males have
usually lanceolate bodies. In the latter genus there
will be no difficulty in associating the legitimate part-
ners; but in Andrena, although general habit will usually

N 2

180 BRITISH BEES.

bring the male within the boundary of the genus, nothing
but experience, or specific description will associate the
sexes correctly, there being in many cases an extraordi-
nary discrepancy between them. These two genera
themselves also can scarcely be distinguished apart, ex-
cepting by means of their trophi ; Cilissa, however, in
general habit greatly resembles the genus Collates, espe-
cially the Cilissa tricincta, which might, upon a super-
ficial glance, be almost mistaken for one of them.

The male Halicti have long cylindrical bodies and
long antennse, but from the male Chdostoma, which has
a very similarly shaped body also and long antennse,
they may be distinguished by the differences in the num-
ber of the submarginal cells; and from those of Sphe-
codes, by the antennse, which, in the latter are not rela-
tively so long, and are usually moniliform. The thorax
of these is also less pubescent, and the tinge of the red
colour of their abdomen is different from that of the red
male Halicti.

The males of Ccelioxys can be readily distinguished
from those of Megachile, by the spinose apex of their
abdomen. In Meyachik, general habit will bring the
males within the precincts of their genus, as well as their
largely dilated anterior tarsi in some of the species.

A difficulty similar to what is found in the distinction
between Andrena and Cilissa, arises in the separation of
Chelostoma from Heriades, and which we shall again
meet with in drawing the line between Anthophora and
Saropoda. The difference can only be detected by ex-
amining the trophi, but a pin and a little patience will
elucidate the separation. The males in all but two
species of Anthophora may be readily associated with
their partners ; but in these two the females are entirely

METHOD OF DETERMINING GENERA. 131

black, and so hirsute as to have led Ray (wanting the
knowledge of the use of the trophi and posterior shanks)
to unite the one he knew with his Bombylii ; their males
are fulvous, and the latter have a remarkable elongation
of the intermediate tarsi, from one of the joints of which
also a tuft of hair or a loose lateral fringe projects, giv-
ing them thus a wider expansion, and the use of which
is prehensile, the same as that for which the anterior
tarsi in some of the Megachiles- and in our single Anlhi-
dium receive their dilatation. This structure has also
the effect of adding very considerably to the elegance of
their appearance when they are in fine condition.

The male Apathi can only be distinguished from the
male Bombi by familiarity with specific characteristics,
or by the examination of the trophi. But the former
is the more certain mode of separation, as the trophi
in Bombus vary in some species, but not sufficiently to
authorize generic subdivison. General appearance will
mark where they approximately belong. The length of
their antennse sufficiently distinguishes them as males,
and they may be taken with impunity in the fingers
from flowers for examination, being, like all the male
aculeate Hymenoptera, unarmed with stings. The female
Apathi may be superficially distinguished from the female
Bombi, which they most resemble, exclusively of the
generic characters of the convex and subpubescent ex-
ternal surface of the posterior tibiae and the trophi, also
by their abdomen being considerably less hirsute than
that of the genuine Bombi, in which it is entirely covered
with dense shaggy hair, whereas in Apathus there is a
broad disk upon its surface nearly glabrous. If I re-
member rightly, it is the male Apathi only, and not the
male Bombi, which emit on capture a pleasantly fragrant
odour of attar of roses.

18.2 BRITISH BEES.

The table will suffice for distinguishing the male Apis
from all other male Apid<e, and which has a further
peculiarity exhibited by no other of our native bees, in
the conjunction upon the vertex of the compound eyes,
in front of which, upon the frons, the simple eyes or
ocelli are placed in a very slightly curved line.

These indications are enough to enable the beginner
to work his way smoothly, and a little practice will soon
render these observations superfluous.

The economy of nature is so perfect that wherever
we can trace a difference, we may assume that a reason
and a purpose exist for the variation. Thus we do not
know why some bees have three submarginal cells to
their wings, and others only two. Nor do we know
what governs their variety of shape. The deficiency we
might think implied inferiority ; but this cannot be, for
those with most frequently the smaller number, viz. the
artisan bees, are, in the majority of cases, the most
highly endowed, and have the most special habits.

In the relative numbers of the maxillary and labial
palpi, there are remarkable differences, the reason for
which we cannot trace, for, as before observed, we do
not know even their function, which would perhaps
guide us to other views. Their normal numbers are six
maxillary, and four labial palpi. The latter take re-
markable relative development and peculiarity of inser-
tion and form, especially in the Apidis ; but throughout
the whole series of our bees, they are never reduced to
fewer than their normal number, whereas the maxillary
palpi never have similarly large development of struc-
ture, and are variously modified in number and consis-
tency from the typical or normal condition.

Thus in Euccra and Melecta there are but five joints;

METHOD OF DETERMINING GENERA. 183

in Os:nia and Saropoda, four; in Chelostoma and Coeli-
oxys, three; in Anthidium and Megachile, etc., two;
and in Epeoltis and Apis but one.

In this collocation no incidental peculiarity beyond
diversity is apparent, for in the first instance a parasite
and a bee not parasitical are associated ; and in the last,
a parasite is associated with the bee which has the most
elaborate economy, and the most largely developed in-
stinct of all known insects. Nor are, in any case, those
parasites associated by these means with their own sitos,
or insect upon which they are parasitical.

Thus encouragement attends the beginner at the very
outset of his study ; and the prospect of a wide field for
discoveries, in many directions, lies open to him, to
excite his curiosity and to stimulate his industry to the
pursuit of higher aims than the mere accumulation of
species.

184

CHAPTER X.

THE SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION
OF THE GENERA, WITH LISTS OF OUR NATIVE SPE-
CIES AND AN ACCOUNT OF THE HAEITS AND ECO-
NOMY OF THE INSECTS, WITH INCIDENTAL OBSER-
VATIONS SUGGESTED BY THE SUBJECT.

I NOW proceed to the treatment and description of the
genera severally, and the enumeration of the species in
due scientific consecutive order.

The generic names adopted are those of the first
describers of the genera; hut the generic characters
given by them could not be employed, they having been
usually framed to suit special purposes.

All the generic characters introduced into this work
are therefore quite original, and have been made from
a very careful autoptical examination of the insects
themselves.

The synonymy added to the lists of species is limited
to the species described in Mr. Kirby's work, where he
is not the first describer, or to those of such other
English works wherein the species may have been de-
scribed in ignorance of its previous registration.

The observations appended, wherein the habits of the
insects are described, will be found to embrace discur-

COLLETES. 185

sive subjects suggested by the matter in hand, and here
a dry didactic style has been purposely avoided, as in
the majority of cases they record the personal experi-
ences or notions of and hints from an old practical en-
tomologist.

CLASS INSECTA METABOLIA, Leach.
Order HYMENOPTERA, Linnaeus.

DIVISION ACTTLEATA, Leach.

Antennae in male with 13 joints, in female with 12. Abdomen in male
with 7 segments, in female with 6.

FAMILY MELLICOLLIGEBJE (Honey-collectors), Shuck.

Subfamily 1. ANDBENIDES (Subnormal Bees), Leach.
Syn. Genus MELITTA, Kirby.

The maxillary palpi always six-jointed.

Section 1. With lacerate paraglosses.

Subsection a. LIXGTLE EMARGINAT^: (with emarginate tongues).
Syn. OBTTJSILINGTJES, Westw.

Three submarginal cells to the wings.

Genus 1. COLLETES, Latrellle.

(Plate I. fig. 1 $ ? .)

MELITTA * a, Kirby.

Gen. Char.: HEAD transverse, flattish ; ocelli in an
open triangle on the vertex ; antennae not geniculated, but
slightly curved, filiform, short ; joints, excepting the basal
or scape, which is as long as five of the rest and slightly
curved, nearly equal; face beneath and within the inser-
tion of the antennae, slightly protuberant, laterally flat
or concave; chjpeus convex, margined anteriorly, entire ;
labrum transverse, slightly produced in the centre in

186 BRITISH BEES.

front, and the process rounded ; mandibles obtuse, sub-
bidentate ; cibarial apparatus short ; tongue deeply
emarginate and bilobate, the lobes fringed with short
setse ; paraylossce half the length of the tongue, abruptly
terminating and lacerate, and setose at the apex ; labial
palpi much shorter than the paraglossse, four-jointed, the
joints equal and each subclavate ; labium about the same
length as the tongue, its inosculation acutely angulated ;
maxilla broad, lanceolate, the length of the tongue;
maxillary palpi six-jointed, not so long as the maxillse,
the two basal joints the longest, the rest equal, short, and
subclavate, the apical one rounded. THORAX subquad-
rate, very pubescent, the prothorax inconspicuous ; scu-
tellum transversely triangular or sem\\ui\a,te,postscutelhim
lunulate; metathorax abruptly truncated, and densely pu-
bescent, especially laterally, for the conveyance of pollen ;
wings with three sub marginal cells and a fourth slightly
commenced, the second and third each receiving about
their centre a recurrent nervure ; legs all pubescent, the
anterior and intermediate on their external surface chiefly,
their plants also setose ; the posterior coxa, trochanters,
femora, and tibia very hirsute, especially beneath, their
tarsi entirely setose ; claws bifid. ABDOMEN truncated
at the base, subconical with a downward bias, the seg-
ments with bands of closely decumbent nap, and the sur-
face of all more or less deeply or delicately punctured ;
the basal segment in the centre, beneath, with a longi-
tudinal tuft of long hair.

The MALE differs in having the mandibles more dis-
tinctly bidentate, and in being less densely pubescent,
especially upon the legs. In general aspect it is very
like its female.

Note. The genus Cilissa has, superficially observed,

COLLETES. 187

much of the habit of Colletes, particularly in the male of
Cilissa tricincta.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. succincta, Linnseus, g ? . 3^-5^ lines.
succinct a, Kir by.

fodiens, Curtis.

2. fodiens, Kirby, £ ? . 3^-4^ lines.
pallicincta, Kirby, ? .

3. marginata, Linn., <$ ? . 3-4 lines.

4. Daviesiana, Kirby, <$ $ . 3|-4| lines. (Plate I.

fig. 1 c? ? 0

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

This genus is named from KoXhiJTijs, one that plasters,
in allusion to the habits of the insects, which will be de-
scribed below. The female insects themselves have, at
the first glance, very much the appearance of the work-
ing honey-bee, but they are considerably smaller, and,
upon a very slight inspection, they are found to be ex-
ceedingly distinct. The respective males of the species
are conspicuously smaller than their females, but their
specific characteristics are very much alike, and there is
some difficulty in separating and determining the species.
One strong peculiarity, marking all of them, is that the
segments of the abdomen are banded with decumbent,
hoary or whitish down, in both sexes, and the determi-
nation of the species lies chiefly in the variations, of these
bands, and in the almost entire absence or conspicuous
presence of minute punctures covering the segments.
The females are very active collectors of pollen, and re-
turn from their excursions to obtain it, very heavily
laden to their nests. I am not sure that all the species
are not gregarious, to use this term in an acceptation,

188 BRITISH BEES.

somewhat different from its usual application,, for here,
and whenever used in entomology, it is meant to signify
that they burrow collectively in large communities, form-
ing what is called their metropolis, although each bores
its independent and separate tube, wherein to deposit its
store of eggs. The males, neither in these insects nor
throughout the whole family of the bees, participate at
all in the -labours required for the preservation and
nurture of the progeny, a duty that wholly devolves upon
the maternal solicitude of the female, — these males
having fulfilled their mission, which is not perhaps re-
stricted to their sexual instinct, but may also be condu-
cive to the grand operation of the family in the economy
of nature, viz. the fertilization of the flowering plants,
flit from blossom to blossom, and thus convey about the
impregnating dust. They may also be often seen bask-
ing in the sunshine upon the leaves of shrubs, and
thence they become lost or dispersed or the prey of their
many enemies,— birds or insects, which are always on
the alert in search of ravin.

The aspect selected by the females for their burrows,
varies according to the species. Some choose a northern,
and others a southern aspect; thus, the C. succincta
seems to prefer the former, and the C. fndiens the latter,
as does also the C. Daviesana ; and where they burrow
they congregate in enormous multitudes. The mortar
interstices of an old wall, or a vertical sand-rock, which,
from exposure, is sufficiently softened for their purpose,
are equally agreeable to them ; nor have they any objec-
tion to clay banks.

In these localities each individual perforates a cylin-
drical cavity, slightly larger than itself, and which it
excavates to a depth of from eight to ten inches, or even

COLLETES. 189

sometimes less. Now comes into operation the use of
the peculiarly-formed tongue with which nature has
furnished them, and described above in the generic cha-
racter. These cells are occupied by a succession of six,
or eight, or even sometimes no more than two, three, or
four cartridge- or thimble-like cases, in each of which
is deposited a single egg with a sufficiency, taught the
creature by its instinct, of a mingled paste of honey and
pollen, for the full nurture and development of the vermi-
cle that will proceed from the egg upon its being hatched,
and wherein this larva, having consumed its provender,
becomes transformed into the pupa, and by the con-
tinuance of nature's mysterious operations, it speedily
changes into the perfect insect. But the beauty with
which these little cells are formed transcends conception.
Each consists of a succession of layers of a membrane
more delicate than the thinnest goldbeater's skin, and
more lustrous than the most beautiful satin. In glitter
it most resembles the trail left by the snail, and is
evidently, from all experiments made, a secretion of the
insect elaboi'ated from some special food it consumes, and
by means of its bilobated tongue, which it uses as a trowel,
it plasters with it the sides and the bottom of the tube
it has excavated to the extent necessary for one division. ,
As this secretion dries rapidly to a membrane it is
succeeded by others, to the number of three or four,
\\hich may be separated from each other by careful
manipulation. It then stores this cell, deposits the egg,
and proceeds to close it with a covercle of double the
number of membranes with which the sides are fur-
nished, and continues with another in a similar manner,
until it has completed sufficient to fill the tubular cavity,
Avhich, after closing the last case similarly to the rest, it

190 BRITISH BEES.

stops up the orifice with grains of sand or earth. The
food stored up is subject to fermentation, but this does
not appear to be prejudicial to the larva, which first con-
sumes the liquid portion of the store and then drills
into the centre of the more solid part, and continues
enlarging this little cylinder until increasing in growth
by its consumption, it itself fills the cavity, and thus
supplies the lateral stay or prop which, by means of the
stored provender, was previously prevented from falling
in. It has not been ascertained what number of eggs
each insect lays, or whether it bores more than one
tube, but it is presumable that it may do so, and pos-
sibly thus, from the numbers annually produced, for
there are two broods in the year, colonies are thrown oft'
•which gradually form another metropolis somewhere in
the vicinity, although the majority continue to occupy
the old habitat from year to year. But the number of
these insects is kept within due limits by the individual
abundance of the parasites that infest them, and by the
unsparing and unflinching attacks of earwigs, which con-
sume all before them, — perfect insect, larva, and pro-
vender. The two most conspicuous parasites they have,
are the beautiful little bee, Epeolus variegatus, the young
,of which is sustained, as in all bee parasitism, by con-
suming the food stored for the sustenance of the young
of the Colletes ; and the other is the little dipterous
Miltogramma punctata, whose larva, evolved from the
egg deposited in the cell, feeds upon the larva of the
Colletes, or possibly upon that of the Epeolus, which
otherwise would seem to have no check to its fertility,
excepting that it may be subdued by the Forficulce.

These insects are to be found during the spring and
summer months, and throughout the southern counties,

PROSOPIS. 191

although some species are extremely local. Some occur
also in the north of England and in Ireland. I am not
prepared to say what flowers they prefer, for I have
never captured them on flowers, but they have been
found frequenting the Ragwort, and Curtis took a spe-
cies at Parley Heath, in Hampshire, on the Bluebell
(Campanula glomerata}. They form a remarkable in-
stance of an artisan bee, but so only in its habits, amongst
the Andrenides.

Two submarginal cells to the wings.

Genus 2. PKOSOPIS, Fabricius.

(Plate I. fig. 2 cJ ? .)
MELITTA * b, Kirby. — HTL^US, Latreille.

Gen. Char. : HEAD transverse, flattish ; ocelli in an
open triangle on the vertex ; antennas geniculated, the
basal joint of the flagellum as long as the second, and
both subclavate, the rest of the joints short and equal ;
face flat, slightly protuberant between the insertion of
the antennae, and distinguished from the clypeus by a
suture ; clypeus transversely quadrate, slightly widening
gradually to the apex, marginate ; labrum transverse,
obovate, fringed with setse; mandibles broad at apex,
tridentate ; cibarial apparatus short ; tongue broad, sub-
emarginate and fringed with short hair ; paraglossa very
slightly longer than the tongue, their apex broadly
rounded and fringed wiih hair ; labial palpi as long as
the tongue, joints subequal, gradating in substance, sub-
clavate ; labium about as long as the tongue, pyramidal
at its apical inosculation ; maxilla about as long as the
tongue, slightly lanceolate, fringed with short hair;

192 BRITISH BEES.

maxillary palpi ratlier longer than the maxillse, with
six joints, the basal joint robust and slightly constricted
in the middle, the third joint linear and the longest, the
remainder gradually decreasing in length and substance.

THORAX subquadrate ; prothorax transverse, linear,
angulated at the sides ; mesothorax with its bosses pro-
tuberant ; scutellum and post-scutellum semilunulate ;
mdathorax abruptly truncate, and longitudinally cari-
nated in the centre ; wings with two submarginal cells,
a third slightly indicated, the first recurrent uervure
springing from the extreme apex of the first submarginal
cell, closely to the first transverso-cubital nervure, and
the second closely before the termination of the second
submarginal cell ; stigma of the wing large and distinct ;
legs wholly destitute of polliniferous hair, the terminal
joint of the tarsus as long as the two preceding; claws
bifid ; ABDOMEN subtruncate at the base, subcouical
with a downward bias.

The MALE differs in having the mandibles distinctly

O «

bidentate, the external tooth acute ; the antennae are
very slightly longer and more curved, and their colouring
is more intense and more widely distributed. These
insects are glabrous, generally intensely black, dull on
the head and thorax, but shining on the abdomen, and
are more or less thickly punctured, and they are usually
gaily marked with yellow, citron, or red, especially on
the face, thorax, and legs.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. annulatus, Fab., <$ ? . 2|-3 lines.
annulatus, Kirby.

2. dilatata, Kirby, $ . 3 lines. (Plate I. fig. 2 $ .)

dilatatus, Curtis.

PROSOPIS. 193

3. annularis, Kirby, $ ? . 2^-3 Hues.

4. liyalinata, Smith, $ ? . 2-3 lines.

5. signata, Panzer, $ ? . 3-3 \ lines. (Plate I.

fig. 2 ? .)
signata, Kirby.

6. cornuta, Kirby, $ ? . 3-3j lines.

7. varipes, Sm., $ ? . H lines.

8. variegata, Fab., ^ ? . 2-3 lines.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

This genus is named from TrpocrcoTri?, apparently in
allusion to its seemingly masked face, most of the species
having yellow markings more or less conspicuous upon
the face.

It is the least pubescent of any of the bees, even
less so than those confirmed parasites, the genera No-
mada and Stelis, thus further tending to corroborate its
apparently parasitical habits, for none of the truly polli-
nigerous bees are so destitute of hair. The ground-
colour of the species is intensely black, variously deco-
rated on the face, thorax, and legs, with markings of
different intensities of yellow; but one of our species,
the P. variegata, is also gaily marked with red. Indeed
exotic species, and especially those of warm climates,
are often very gay insects.

They have usually been considered as parasitical in-
sects, from their being unfurnished with the customarv

* t>

apparatus of hair upon the posterior legs, with which
pollinigerous insects are generally so amply provided.
In contradiction to their parasitism, it is asserted that
they have been repeatedly bred from bramble sticks ;
this circumstance is no proof of the fact of their not

o

194 BRITISH BEES.

being parasitical, for many bees, for instance Ceratina,
Heriades, etc., nidificate iu bramble sticks, and they
may have superseded the nidificating bee bj depositing
their ova in the nests of the latter; although it certainly
is a remarkable circumstance that some one of these
bees has never escaped destruction in the several instances
in which these have been thus bred. It is also said that
their nests contain a semi-liquid honey. The fact of the
larva of a wild bee being nurtured upon any other pro-
vender than a mixture of pollen and honey, does not
elsewhere occur, and it would seem to contradict the
function this family is ordained to exercise, by conveying
pollen from flower to flower, and which besides, in every
other case, constitutes the nutritive aliment of the larva.
But then, again, the structure of its tongue, which re-
sembles somewhat that of Colletes in lateral expansion,
and with which it would be provided for some analogous
purpose, seems to contradict parasitical habits, although
St. Fargeau asserts that it is parasitical upon this genus,
and if so, although it has not been observed in this
country, the analogous structure of the tongue might be
perhaps explained.

But notwithstanding this deficiency of positive cha-
racters, from the absence of pollinigerous organs, nature
is not to be controlled by laws framed by us upon the
imperfect induction of incomplete facts, for if it be in-
contestable that this genus is constructive and not pa-
rasitical, the riddle presented by this structure of its
tongue is at once solved, for without any affinity beyond
that single peculiarity with Colletes, it presents an ano-
maly of organization which cannot be accounted for but
by its application to a use similar to what we find it
applied in that extraordinary genus, — a use that could

PROSOPIS. 193

not be extant in a parasite. In Collctcs it is the con-
comitant of as ample a power of collecting pollen as any
that we find exhibited throughout the whole range of
our native bees, but in Prosopis it is concurrent with a
total deficiency of the ordinary apparatus employed for
that purpose.

One of the species of this genus has been found near
Bristol, with the indication of a Sty lops having escaped
from it, which is a further extension of the parasitism
of that most extraordinary genus, but the Stylops fre-
quenting it has not yet been discovered, which would
doubtless present a new species, therefore an interesting
addition to the series already known.

ti

These insects are not at all uncommon in some of the
species during the latter spring and summer months,
and they frequent the several Resedas, being very fond
of Mignonette. They are also found upon the Draco-
cephalum Moldavica, and occur not unfrequeutly upon the
Onion, which in blossom is the resort of many interest-
ing insects. The majority of them emit when captured,
and if held within the fingers, a very pungent citron
odour, exceedingly refreshing on a hot day, in intense
sunshine. Some of the species are rare, especially those
very highly coloured, as is also the P. dilatata, so named
from the peculiar triangular expansion of the basal joint
of the antenuse, the female of which is not known or
possibly has only been overlooked or not identified.
The P. varipes and P. variegata, which are the most
richly coloured, occur in the west of England, and
in one, the P. cornuta, the ciypeus is furnished with a
tubercle.

o 2

196 BRITISH BEES.

Subsection b. LiNGlTjE LANCEOLATE (with lancet-shaped tongues).

Genus 3. SPHECODES; Latreille.
(Plate I. fig. 3 c? ? .)
MELITTA ** a, Kirby.

Gen. Char. : HEAD transverse, linear, fully as wide as
the thorax, flat, with a slightly convex tendency ; ocelli
in a triangle ; antennas short, scarcely geniculated ; face
beneath the insertion of the antennse, protuberant ;
clypeus transverse, margined, convex ; labrum trans-
versely ovate, deeply eruarginate, in the centre in front;
mandibles bidentate, obtuse, the external tooth project-
ing much further than the second ; tongue short, lan-
ceolate, fringed with setee; paraylosste not so long as
the tongue, abruptly terminated, and setose at the ex-
tremity ; labial palpi not so long as the paraglossse ;
the joints comparatively elongate and slender, and
decreasing towards the apex in length and substance ;
labium rather longer than the tongue, its inosculation
straightly transverse ; maxillae about the length of the
tongue, broad and lanceolate; maxillary palpi six-
jointed, the first joint shorter and less robust than the
second, which is also shorter and less robust than the
third, which is the longest and most robust of all, the
terminal joints more slender, and declining gradually in
length. THORAX ovate ; prothorax linear, produced into
a sharp tooth on each side ; mesothorax with longitudi-
nal lateral impressed lines; bosses acutely protuberant ;
scutellum quadrate; postscutellum inconspicuous; meta-
thorax slightly gibbous; wings with three submarginal
cells, and a fourth slightly commenced, the second
narrow, forming a truncated triangle, and receiving the

SPHECODES. 197

first recurrent nervure in its centre, the second recurrent
nervure springing from just beyond the centre of the
third submarginal cell ; leys slightly but rigidly spinose
and setose; claws bifid. ABDOMEN ovate.

The MALES differ, in having the antennae longer and
sometimes moniliform, the lower part of the face and
clypcus usually covered with a dense short silvery decum-
bent pubescence, and they have the metathorax truncated
at its base ; in other respects they greatly resemble their
females.

The insects of this genus may be called glabrous, their
pubescence being so slight and scattered, they usually
shine brightly, and are more or less deeply punctured ; and
the abdomen is always partially or entirely of a bright
ferruginous red, sometimes verging into fuscous or pitchy.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. gibbus, Linnseus, <$ ? . 3-44 lines- (Plate I. fig.

3c? ?)•

sphecoides. Kirby, $ .
monilicornis, Kirby, d .
picea, Kirby, $ .

2. Geoffroyella, Kirby, $ ? . 1-3 lines.

divisa, Kirby, £ .
S.fuscipennis, Germar, £ <j> . 4^-6 lines.

GENEUAL OBSERVATIONS.

This genus is named from o-(/»;f, a wasp, from its
apparent resemblance to some of the sand wasps.

They are not uncommon insects, and I have found
them abundant in sandy spots sporting in the sunshine
upon the bare ground, where they run about with great
activity, the females chiefly, the males the while dis-

198 BRITISH BEES.

porting themselves upon any flowers that may be ad-
jacent, and they are especially fond of Ragwort. Their
prevalent colours are black and red, the latter occurring
only on the abdomen in different degrees of intensity
and extension, sometimes occupying the whole of that
division of the body, and sometimes limited to a band
across it. Much difficulty attaches to the determina-
tion of the species from the characters which separate
them being extremely obscure, for it is not safe to de-
pend upon the differences of the arrangement of colour
upon them, as it varies infinitely ; nor can their relative
sizes be depended upon as a clue, for in individuals
which must be admitted to be of the same species, size
takes a wider extent of difference than in almost any of
the genera of bees. St. Fargeau, who maintains the
parasitism of the genus, accounts for it by saying that
in depositing their eggs in the nests of the Andrencs,
Halicti, and Dasypoda, the Sphecodes resorts to the
burrows of the species of these genera indifferent to
their adaptation to its own size, and thus from the
abundance or paucity of food so furnished to its larvae,
does it become a large or a small individual. West-
wood says the species are parasitical upon Halictus.
Latreille says they are parasites. They are certainly
just as destitute of the pollinigerous apparatus as the
preceding genus. Mr. Thwaites once thought he had
detected a good specific character in the differing lengths
of the joints of the antennae, but I believe he never
thoroughly satisfied himself of its being practically
available. At all events great difficulty still attaches to
their rigid and satisfactory determination. There is an
array of entomologists who deny their being parasites.
Mr. Kirby says they form their burrows in bare sections

SPHECODES. 199

of sandbanks exposed to the sun, and nine or ten inches
deep, and which they smooth with their tongues. But
then, in impeachment of the accuracy of his observation,
he further supposes there are three sexes, founding his
statement upon what Keaumur remarks of having ob-
served pupse of three different sizes in the burrows. In
the first place, it is not conclusive that these pupae were
those of Sphecodes, and secondly we know that this con-
dition of three sexes is found only in the social tribes,
wherein the peculiarities of the economy exact a division
of offices. Therefore his adoption of this inaccuracy
militates against the reception of his other statement.
But Smith also states that they are not parasites, and
apparently founds his assertion upon direct observation.
It still, however, remains a debatable point, from the
fact of the destitution of pollinigerous brushes, and
thence the character of the food necessary to be stored
for the larva. It would be very satisfactory if these
apparent inconsistencies could be lucidly explained.

If, however, it be ultimately proved that Sphecodes is
a constructive bee, as well as Prosopis, we have then
this fact exhibited by our native genera, that none of the
subfamily of our short-tongued bees, or Andrenida, are
parasitical. This is a remarkable peculiarity, as it is
amongst them that we should almost exclusively expect
to find that distinguishing economy, from the seemingly
imperfect apparatus furnished in the short structure of
their tongues. It is possible, however, that nature has
so moulded them as to fit them chiefly for fulfilling its
objects within merely a certain range of the floral reign,
and which restricts them to visiting flowers which do
not require the protrusion of a long organ to rifle their
sweet stores.

200 BRITISH BEES.

Genus 4. AlsDKENA, Fabricius.
(Plates II. and III.)
MELITTA ** c, Kirby.

Gen, Char. : HEAD transverse, as wide as the thorax ;
ocelli in a triangle on the vertex ; antenna filiform,, geni-
culated, the basal joint of the flagellum the longest ; face
flat; clypeus convex, transverse, quadrate, slightly rounded
in front ; labrum transverse, oblong ; mandibles bidentate ;
tongue moderately long, lanceolate, fringed with fine
hair ; paraglossce half the length of the tongue, abruptly
terminated and setose at the extremity ; labium about
half the length of the entire apparatus, its inosculation
acute; labial palpi inserted above it, below the origin of
the paraglossse in a sinus upon the sides of the tongue ;
maxilla irregularly lanceolate ; maxillary palpi six-
jointed, longer than the maxillse, the basal joint about
as long as the fourth, but more robust, the second joint
the longest, the rest declining in length and substance.
THORAX ovate ; prothorax not distinct ; mesothorax
quadrate ; bosses protuberant ; scutellum lunate ; post-
scutellum lunulate ; metathorax gibbous, and pubescent
laterally ; wings with three submarginal cells, and a
fourth slightly commenced, the second quadrate, and
with the third receiving a recurrent nervure about their
middle ; legs densely pubescent, especially externally,
and particularly the posterior pair, which have a long
curled lock upon the trochanter beneath, the anterior
upper surface of the femora clothed with long loose hair,
which equally surrounds the whole of the tibiae, but which
is less long upon their plantse, the claivs strongly bifid.
ABDOMEN ovate, a dense fringe edging the fifth segment,

ANDREXA. 201

and the terminal segment having a triangular central
plate, its sides rigidly setose.

The MALE differs in having the head rather wider than
the thorax, the vertex where the ocelli are placed more
protuberant, the mandibles very large and more acutely
bidentate, sometimes largely forcipate and with but one
acute tooth ; the males in most species greatly differ
from their females.

None of these insects exhibit any positive colouring of
the integument, excepting in some upon the abdomen,
which exhibits red bands, and is disposed to vary con-
siderably in intensity and breadth, and in some the
clypeus and face are of a cream-colour, but which occurs
chiefly among the males. They are very dissimilar in
general appearance, some being densely pubescent all
over, others merely so on the head and thorax ; others
are banded with white decumbent down, and some are
wholly unmarked upon the abdomen. These pecu-
liarities help to group them, and thus facilitate their

recognition.

NATIVE SPECIES.

§ Sanded with red on the abdomen, the segments of which are more or

less fringed.

1. Hattorfiana, Fab., J $ . 6-7 lines.
Lathamana, Kirby, $ .
heemorrhoidalis, Kirby, ? .

2. zonalis, Kirby, $ ? . 4|-5 lines.

3. florea, Fabricius, <$ $ . 5-6^ lines.
Rosa, Kirby, var.'

4. Rosce, Panzer, £ ? . 4-6 lines. (Plate III. fig.

1<??0

Rosce, Kirby, ? .

202 BRITISH BEES.

5. decor ata, Smith, $ ? . 5-6 \ lines.

6. SchranMJa, Kirby, c? ? • 4-5 lines.
offinis, Kirby.

7. c-ingulata, Fabricius, # ? • 3^-4 lines. (Plate III.

fig. 3 c? ? .)
dngulata, Kirby.

§§ Abdominal segments edged with decumbent short down, or fringed

ivith long hair.

8. longipes, Shuckard, c? ? . 4-6 lines. (Plate III.

%. 2c? ?•)

9. chnjsosceles, Kirby, $ ? . 3^-4i lines.

10. dorsata, Kirby, £ ? . 4-4^ lines.
combinata, Kirby.

nudiuscula, Kirby.

11. connectens, Kirby. 5 lines.

12. Wilkella, Kirby, ? . 5J lines.

13. Coitana, Kirby, <$ ? . 4 lines.
Shawella, Kirby.

14. labialis, Kirby, $ ? . 5^-6 lines.

15. Leivinella, £ . 3| lines.

16. aranthura, Kirby, <$ ? . 3^-6 lines.
ovatula, Kirby.

17. Collinsonana, Kirby, $ ? . 3^-4| lines.
digitalis, Kirby.

proximo,, Kirby.

18. albicrus, Kirby, $ ? . 4-5 ^ lines.
barbilabris, Kirby.

19. minutula, Kirby, £ ? . • 2|-3^ lines.
parvula, Kirby.

20. nana, Kirby, ? . 3i lines.

21. convexiuscula, Kirby, $ ? . 5 lines.

22. Kirbyi, Curtis, ? . 6 lines.

ANDRENA. 203

23.fuscata, Kirby, ?. 4^ lines.

24. Afaeliella, Kirby, $ ? . 4|-5 lines.

25. fulvicrus, Kirby, ^ ?. 3^-5$ lines.
contiyua, Kirby.

2G. fulvago, Christ. $ ? . 4-44 lines.
fulvago, Kirby.

27. tibialis, Kirby. 5-7 \ lines.
atriceps, Kirby.

28. Mouffetdla, Kirby, £ ? . 5-7 lines.

29. nigro-anea, Kirby, $ $ . 5-6^ lines.

30. bimuculata, Kirby, <$ . 5 1 lines.

31. Trimmer ana, Kirby, $ ? . 5-6 lines.

32. conjunct a, Smith, $ . 5| lines.

33. varians, Rossi, ^ ? . 4-54 lines.
3i. helvola, Linnaeus, <$ ? . 5-5 1 lines.

picipes, Kirby, <$ .
anyulosa, Kirby.

35. Gwynana, Kirby, £ $ . 4-5 1 lines.
pihsula, Kirby.

36. angmtior, Kirby, ^ $ . 4-5 lines.

37. picicornis, Kirby, $ ? . 5-6 lines.

38. spinigera, Kirby, $ ? . 5-6 lines.

39. Smithdla, Kirby, $ $ . 3-6 lines.

40. Lapponica, Zetterstedt, ^ ? . 3^-5^ lines.

41. trident ata, Kirby, $ , 4| lines.

'42. denticulata, Kirby, £ $ . 4-5i lines.
Listerella, Kirby.

43. niyriceps, Kirby, $ . 5 lines.

44. pubescens, Kirby, <$ ? . 4-5 lines.
rufitarsiSj Kirby.

fuscipes, Kirby.

204 BRITISH BEES.

§§§ Tliorax very pubescent, abdomen smooth and shining.

45. albicam, Kirby, <? ? . 4-5 lines.

46. pilipes, Fabricius, 3 ? . 5-7 lines.
pratensis, Kirby.

47. cineraria, Linnaeus, c? ? • 5-7 lines. (Plate II.

fig- 2c? ?.)
cineraria, Kirby.

48. thoracica, Fabricius, <$ ? . 5-7^ lines.
thoracica, Kirby.

melanocephala, Kirby.

49. nitida, Fourcroy, <$ ? . 5-6^ lines. (Plate II.

fig. 3c? ?.)
nitida, Kirby.

50. vitrea, Smith, ? . 64 lines.

§§§§ The entire lody densely pubescent.

Sl.fulva, Schrank, <$ ? . 4-6| lines. (Plate II.

fig. 1 f ? •)
fulva, Kirby.
52. Clarkella, Kirby, # ? . 4^-6 J lines.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Fabricius seems to have named this genus from
avdprjvrj, a wasp, but why, it is impossible to say. Al-
though one name is as good as another, it being indif-
ferent what the name may be, yet where so evident an
attempt to give a name pertinence is conspicuous, it is
remarkable that it should be so little relevant, for none
of the characteristics of a wasp or hornet are exhibited
in these insects.

Possibly it was from the genus being the most nu-
merous in species that Dr. Leach was induced to give

ANDRENA. 205

this subfamily its collective designation, making the
other genera thus converge to it as to a centre. He
took its elliptical form as typical. Indeed, it is remark-
able how very judiciously this was done, for it is a form
not apparent among the normal bees excepting in two
exceptional cases, the one upon the frontiers of this
subfamily, in almost debatable land, where the last of
the Andrenidas and the first of the Apidce seem almost
to melt into one another ; and in the other case, in the
parasitical Nomada, whose parasitism is in every in-
stance, but one only, restricted to the first subfamily.
A different type of form prevails amongst the Apidcs,
upon which I shall have subsequently occasion to speak.
These insects are not distinguished for any elaborate
economy. Varying in the species, some prefer vertical
banks, others sloping undulations, and again others ho-
rizontal flat ground or hard down-trodden pathways.
Some burrow singly, and others are gregarious, col-
lected in great numbers upon one spot. They are,
perhaps, the most inartificial burrowers of all the bees.
Their tunnels vary from five to nine or ten inches in
depth, and in some species they are formed with other
small tunnels slanting off from the main cylinder. The
sides and bottom are merely smoothed, without either
drapery or polish. The little cells thus formed are then
supplied with the usual mixture of pollen and honey
kneaded together, which in the larger species forms a
mass of about the size of a moderate red currant, its
instinct teaching it the quantity necessary for the nur-
ture of the young which shall proceed from the egg
that it then deposits upon this collected mass of food.
The aperture of each little tunnel is closed with par-
ticles of the earth or sand wherein the insect burrows.

206 BRITISH BEES.

and it proceeds to the elaboration of another receptacle
for a fresh brood until its stock of eggs becomes ex-
hausted. Some species have two broods hatched in the
year, especially the earlier ones, — for several present
themselves with the earliest flowers, — but others are re-
stricted to but one. The quantity of pollen they col-
lect is considerable, and in fact they are supplied with
an apparatus additional to what is furnished to any of
the other genera in a curled rather long lock of hair
that emanates from the posterior trochanters. This, with
the fringes that edge the lower portion and sides of the
metathorax, as well as the usual apparatus upon the
posterior legs, enables the insect to carry in each flight
home a comparatively large quantity of pollen, but per-
haps scarcely enough at once for the nurture of one
young one, and it therefore repeats the same operation
until sufficient is accumulated.

The exact period occupied by their transformations is
not strictly known ; it will, of course, vary in the spe-
cies, as also in those in which two broods succeed each
other in the year, but the larva rapidly consumes its
store and then undergoes its transformation. It does
not spin a cocoon, but in its pupa state it is covered
all over with a thin pellicle, which adheres closely to
all the distinct parts of the body. It is not known how
this is formed; perhaps it is a membrane which trans-
udes in a secretion through the skin of the larva, or it
may be this itself converted to its new use, which seems
to be for the protection of all the parts of the now
transmuting imago, until these in due course shall have
acquired their proper consistency.

These insects in their perfect state vary very consi-
derably in size, both individually and specifically, the

ANDRENA. 207

former depending upon both the quantity and quality
of the food stored up, for the pollen of different plants
varies possibly in its amount of nutriment, else why
should we observe so marked a difference in the sizes
of individuals whose parent instinct would prompt to
furnish them with an uniform and equal supply. The
differences of specific appearance is often very consider-
able in long genera, and perhaps in no genus is it
more conspicuously so than in Andrena, for here we
have some wholly covered with dense hair, and others
almost glabrous; others again with the thorax only
pubescent; some are black, some white, some fulvous,
or golden tinted, and some red; some we find banded
with decumbent down, and others with merely lateral

* V

spots of this close hair, but the most prevalent colour
is brown, which will sometimes by immaturity take a
fulvous or reddish hue. In many males we see excen-
trically large transversely square heads broader than the
thorax, which also have widely spreading forcipate man-
dibles, writh often a downward projecting spine at their
base beneath ; and it is chiefly these extravagantly
formed males which are most dissimilar to their own
partners that the result of observation alone confirms
their specific identity. In other cases the males are so
like their females that a mere neophyte would unite them.
In many males the clypeus and labrum are white, which
also occurs in some females; for instance, in A. labialis,
but this peculiarity is found more rarely in this sex.
The species are much exposed to the restricting in-
fluences of several parasites, whose parasitism is of a
varying character, but the terra should properly be ap-
plied only to the bees which deposit their eggs in their
nests, and whose young, like that of the cuckoo among

208 BRITISH BEES.

the birds, thrives at the expense of the young of the
sitos by consuming its food, and thus starving it. These
parasites consist of many of the species of Nomada,
very pretty and gay insects, but in every case totally
unlike the bee whose nest they usurp. Several of the
species of these Nomadce are not limited to any particu-
lar species of Andrena, but infest several indifferently,
whereas others have no wider range in their spoliation
than one single species, to which they always confine
themselves. In my observations under the genus No-
mada I shall notify those which they assail amongst the
Andrencs, as well as the other genera which they also
infest.

The others which attack them are more properly po-
sitive enemies than parasites, for they prey upon the
bees themselves, or, as in the case of the remarkable
genus Stylops, render the bee abortive by consuming
its viscera and ovaries. I have spoken of these insects
in the chapter upon parasites, to which I must refer,
but I may here add that the female is apterous, and
never quits the body of the bee. Much mystery at-
taches to their history in which their impregnation is
involved, for the male, immediately upon undergoing its
change into the imago, escapes through the dorsal plates
of the abdomen of the bee wherein it was bred and
takes flight. In localities where they occur they may
be usually taken on the wing in the month of May.
The female would seem to be viviparous, and produces
extraordinary multitudes at one birth, extending to hun-
dreds. Being born as larvae within the body of the
bee they seek to escape from their confinement, aud find
the opportunity in the suture which separates the meso-
thorax from the metathorax. Their extreme minuteness

ANDRENA. 209

admits of their passing through the very constricted
tube which connects the abdoraeu with the thorax.
Having now escaped into the air they alight upon the
flowers which the bee frequents, and thence they affix
themselves to other bees which may visit these plants,
and thus perpetuate the activity of the function it is
their instinct to fulfil. That many may be lost there
cau be uo question ; but Nature is very prodigal of life,
for by life it endows life, and thus its activity is en-
larged to a wider circle. Although the matured Stylops
has preyed upon all the internal organs of the bee its
attack is not immediately fatal, although the life of the
creature may be thus considerably abridged, but it seems
to live sufficiently long afterwards to disseminate the
distribution of the Stylops. A small blackish Pediculus,
which Mr. Kirby called Pediculus Melittce, is found also
both upon the flowers the bees frequent and also upon
the bees themselves, especially the pubescent ones ; but
this insect is not limited to the genus Andrena, as I
shall have occasion to notice. The flower I have
chiefly found them upon is the Dandelion (Leontodun}.
Their peculiar economy and connection with the bees is
unknown ; it may be merely an accidental and tempo-
rary attachment, but they even accompany them to their
burrows.

Another and more curious case of attack upon the
young of the Andrena, is instanced in the reputed para-
sitism of the Coleopterous genus Mdoe. The perfect in-
sect is a large apterous, fleshy, heteromerous beetle, ten
times as big as the bee. Its vermicle, having issued from
the egg, has the appearance of a very small pediculus, of
an orange colour. They are often seen upon flowers, and,
like the former pediculus, attach themselves to suchsuit-

p

210 BRITISH BEES.

able Andrena as may happen to visit the flowers they are
upon ; and, it is said, that they are thus conveyed by the
bee to its domicile, and there feed to maturity upon the
larva of the bee. I have no faith in the correctness of this
statement, for it is riot credible that so small a creature
as the larva of an Andrena could fully feed the larva of
so large a beetle. Observation has not satisfactorily con-
firmed it, and the connection may be, as in the former
case, merely accidental.

Although, perhaps, not a strictly scientific course, it is
certainly a matter of convenience in very long genera
to break them up into divisions, framed upon external
characters, readily perceptible, and, by which means, the
species sought for may be more readily found. This I
have done in the preceding list of the species, and which
are based upon very prominent features. A slight diva-
rication from the typical neuration of the wing is ob-
served in some species, but it is not of a sufficiently
marked character to afford a divisional separation, and
even much less a subgeneric one. I have therefore passed
it unnoticed. The commencing entomologist will often
find considerable difficulty at first in determining the
species of this genus, for so much depends upon con-
dition ; and where the colour of the pubescence is the
chief characteristic, a very little exposure to the atmo-
sphere much alters their physiognomy, but time, patience,
and perseverance will ripen the novice into an adept.
The connection of the males with the females, from their
ordinarily great dissimilarity, was only to be accom-
plished by positive observation, but now that this, in the
majority of cases, is effected, good descriptions facilitate
their discrimination.

The most conspicuous species are the Hattorfiana and

C1LISSA. 211

the Rosce for size and colour ; the Schrankella is also a
very pretty species ; and perhaps the commonest of all
the cingulata is the prettiest of all, with its yellow nose
and red abdomen ; in the next section we may point out
the longipes as being a very elegant insect,* as are also
the chrysosceles and the helvola. In this section we find
those most subject to the attacks of the Stylops, for in-
stance the labialis, convexiuscula, picicornis, Afzeliella,
nigro-ainea, Trimmerana, Gwynana, etc. The whole of
the third and fourth sections are splendid insects, espe-
cially the fulva in the last. The comparative rarity of
some results chiefly from an exceedingly local habitat.
Many of the species may be found everywhere where in-
sects can be collected, consequently, all over the United
Kingdom. In all the three seasons of the year, which
prompt animal life, some of the species may be collected,
and the flowers they chiefly prefer are the catkins, espe-
cially of the sallow, the early flowering-fruits, the hedge-
row blossoms, the heath, the broom, the dandelion, chick-
weed, and very many others.

Genus 5. ClLlSSA, Leach.

(Plate V. fig. 1 c? J .)
MELITTA ** c, partly, Kirby. — ANDRENA, Fab. Latreille.

Gen. Char. : HEAD transverse, scarcely so wide as the
thorax, flat ; ocelli in an open triangle on the vertex ;

* This insect was first captured by me, and with this, my manuscript
name, attached to it, it was distributed to entomologists with an un-
sparing hand. The ordinary courtesy of the science has been, for the
describer, when not the capturer, to adopt and circulate the original
authority, and not to appropriate it. Similar buccaneering has been

p 2

212 BRITISH BEES.

face flat ; clypeus transverse, margined ; lubrum trans-
verse, slightly rounded in front ; mandibles bidentate ;
cibarial apparatus moderately long ; tongue lanceolate,
fringed with delicate hair ; paraylossa about one-third
the length of the tongue, abruptly terminated, lacerate
and setose at the extremity ; labial palpi rather longer
than the paraglossse, the basal joint considerably the
longest, all the joints subclavate and diminishing both in
robustness and length to the apex ; labrum half the
length of the entire apparatus, its inosculation acutely
triangular ; maxillae subhastate, as long as the tongue ;
maxillary palpi six-jointed, less than half the length of
the maxillse, the joints short, subclavate and decreasing
gradually from the base to the apex. THORAX densely
pubescent, obscuring its divisions; metathorax trun-
cated ; wings with three submarginal cells, and a fourth
slightly commenced, the second subquadrate and receiv-
ing the first recurrent nervure in its centre, the second
recurrent nervure issuing from beyond the centre of the
third submarginal cell; legs all pilose, especially the
posterior pair, which have hair beneath the coxes and
trochanters, above only on their femorse, but surrounding
the tibiae, and as dense externally upon their plants ;
claws distinctly bifid. ABDOMEN ovate, truncated at the
base, the segments banded at their apex, with decumbent
down, which becomes densely and widely setose on the
fifth segment, the terminal segment having a central tri-
angular glabrous plate, carinated down the centre, and
very rigidly setose laterally.

The MALE scarcely differs, except in having the antennae

practised with poor Bainbridge's Osmia pilicornis, to which he had at-
tached this manuscript name, he being the first to introduce it, having
caught it at Birchwood.

CILISSA. 213

less distinctly geniculated, the flagellum taking a sweep-
ing curve, the face and clypeus much more pubescent,
but the leys sexually less so ; the sexes are much alike.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. tricincta, Kirby, <? ? . 5 lines. (Plate V.fig. 1 c? ? .)
? Apis leporina, Panzer.

2. hamorrhoidalis, Fab. <^ ? .
hcemorrhoidalis chrysura, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

This genus has been named without any reference to
any peculiarity, Dr. Leach having applied a Proper name
to it to designate it.

The Cilissa tricincta is perhaps most like the larger
species of the genus Colletes, both in markings and in
the form of the body, but in resemblance of form the se-
cond species participates. Although robust insects, and
as large as the larger Andrence, they are yet unprovided
with the same ample means for conveying pollen, being
destitute of the lock of hair upon the posterior trochan-
ters and the sides of the metathorax are less densely pu-
bescent. The ground colour is brown. Their economy
is assumed to resemble that of Andrena, although it has
not been so closely investigated ; for my own part I have
never had the opportunity of tracing it to its nidus, hav-
ing always captured the species upon flowers. They are
fond of the trefoil (Trifolium repens), and the C. chrysura
frequents the Campanula rotundifolia, as well as the
flowers of the throatwort (Trachelium}. In their excur-
sions they are usually accompanied by their males. Both
species are found in the south and west of England.

214 BRITISH BEES.

Section 2. With entire par aglossee.

Subsection c. LINGUA ACTJT.S: (acute tongues),
a. With three submarginal cells to the icings.

Genus 6. HALICTUS, Latreille.

(Plate IV.)
MELITTA ** b, Kirby.

Gen. Char. : HEAD transverse, flattish, scarcely so
wide as the thorax ; ocelli in an open triangle on the
vertex, which is flat ; antennae, short, filiform, genicu-
lated, scape quite or more than half as long as the fla-
gellum ; face flat, excepting in the centre just below the
insertion of the antennae, where it is protuberant ; clypeus
transversely lunulate, very convex ; labrum subquadrate,
very convex, with a central, linear, carinated appendage
iu front, nearly as long as the basal portion ; cibarial
apparatus moderate ; tongue very acute and delicately
fringed with short hair ; paraglossa acute, about half
the length of the tongue; labial palpi not quite so long
as the paraglossre, the basal joint very long, the rest
decreasing gradually in length ; labium about as long
as the tongue, its inosculation eruarginate ; maxillae
subhastate, rather longer than the tongue ; maxillary
palpi filiform, the basal joint the shortest, second the
longest, the rest decreasing in length. THORAX oval,
usually pubescent, sometimes glabrous; protkorax in-
conspicuous, as are the bosses of the mesothorax ; scutel-
lum and post-scutellnm lunulate, the former convex ;
metathorax gibbous or truncated, but laterally pubescent
even in the glabrous species ; wings with three submar-
ginal cells, and a fourth sometimes commenced, the se-
cond subquadrate and receiving the first recurrent nervure
close to its extremity, the second being received beyond

HALICTUS. 215

the centre of the third submarginal cell [a slightly diffe-
rent arrangement takes place in some of the species,
which will be noticed subsequently] ; the legs all setose,
but the seise, not very long, and the posterior coxce and
trochanters have long hair beneath ; the claws bifid.
ABDOMEN ovate, the terminal segment with a longitu-
dinal linear incision in its centre.

The MALES differ in having the antennse as long or
longer than the thorax; the labrum transverse, linear,
and the abdomen usually elongate and cylindrical, and
much longer than the head and thorax.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. xanthopus, Kirby, $ ? . 4-5| lines. (Plate IV.

fig. 1 c? ? •)
Lasioylossum tricingulum, Curtis.

2. quadricinctus , Fabricius, $ $ , 4-4| lines.
quadricinctus, Kirby.

3. rubicundus, Christ. <$ $ . 4-5 lines.
rubicundus, Kirby.

4. cylindricus, Fabricius, $ ? . 3-5 lines.
malachura, Kirby.

fulvo-dncta, Kirby.
abdominalis, Kirby.

5. albipes, Fabricius, J ? . 3-4 lines.
alblpes, Kirby.

obovata, Kirby.

G. heviyatus, Kirby, <$ ? . 3-4| lines.
lugubris, Kirby.

7. leucozonius, Schrank, £ . 3— 4^ lines.
leucozonius, Kirby.

8. quadrinotatus, Kirby, <$ ? . 2-3 lines.

9. sexnotatus, Kirby, J ? .

216 BRITISH BEES.

10. Icevift, Kirby, ? . 4 lines.
\\.fulvicornis, Kirby, <^. 4 lines.

12. minutus, Kirby, <$ ? . 2|-3^ lines.

13. nitidiusculus, Kirby, <$ ? . 2-3 lines.

14. minutissimus, Kirby, $ ? . 1^-2| lines. (Plate

IV. fig. 3 <? ? .)
IS.flavipes, Kirby, <? ?. 3-4 lines. (Plate IV. fig.

2 c??'.)
scladonia, Kirby.

16. Smeathmanellus, Kirby, $ ? . 2^-3i lines.

17. teratus, Kirby, <$ ? . 2A-3 lines.

18. leucopus, Kirby, $ ? . 3-3 1 lines.

19. wono, Kirby, $ $ . 2-2^ lines.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Tbis genus was named by Latreille from aX/£V», to
crowd, or collect together, from the fact of their nidifi-
cating in numbers on the same spot.

The females closely resemble in form those of the
genus Andrena, but the males are very unlike both
those of that genus and their own females, for they all
have long cylindrical bodies and very long antennae,
much longer relatively than those of the former genus.
Although none of the species approach in size the larger
ones of the preceding genus, their extremes of specific
size are as distant apart as they are in that genus, the
smallest being extremely minute. Some of even the
commoner species are very pretty when in fine con-
dition, and several of them have a rich metallic green
or blue tint, and in the majority the wings are iridescent
with the brightest and gayest colours of the rainbow.
The numbers in which they associate together upon the
same spot varies considerably, and a very few indeed

HALICTUS. 217

burrow solitarily and apart from their congeners. In
burrowing they form a tunnel which branches off to
several cells, the excavations being as inartificial as are
those of Andrena. Walkenaer tells us in his memoir
upon the genus Halictus, that they line their cells with
a kind of glaze, that they burrow in horizontal surfaces
to a depth of about five inches, and which they polish
very smoothly previous to covering it with their viscous
secretion, and that the cells are all oval, the largest end
being at the bottom. He says also that they burrow
solely during the night, especially when the moon is
shining, when it is difficult to walk without treading
upon them ; so numerous are they, indeed, that they
look like a cloud floating close to the surface of the
ground. Although burrowing thus at night, it is only
during the day that they supply their nests with their
provision of pollen and lay their eggs. Each of their
cells is furnished with a small ball of pollen, varying in
size with the species, but which never entirely fills the
cell, and is affixed intermediately between both extremi-
ties, and upon the mass contained in each cell they de-
posit their small egg, which is placed at the extremity
of the lump of pollen most distant from the entrance.
The larva is hatched in about ten days, when it changes
into the pupa. Some doubt attaches as to the length of
time that the pupa remains before its transformation
into the imago, and also as to the period at which this
takes place. A peculiarity attends the appearance of
the larger species. Some are very early spring insects,
among which is the Halictus rubicundus ; this I have
seen in abundance on the first fine spring days collecting
its stores on the flowers of the chickweed. It is then in
the very finest condition, and it is really a very beautiful

218 BRITISH BEES.

although a very common insect, having a richly golden
fulvous pubescence on the thorax, an intensely black
and glabrous abdomen, the apex of which is fringed with
goklen hair. No males are now to be found at all. Yet
it is only some species, and these the larger ones, which
are subject to this peculiarity, for the smaller ones I
have found burrowing during the summer months in
vertical or sloping banks with a sunny aspect, whilst
the males were hovering about both in the vicinity and
close by, sometimes either playing or fighting on the
wing with the very small Nomadce, which infest these
species parasitically, whilst their females were sedulously
pursuing their vocation. Gradually these joyous spring
insects lose their gayness and their brilliancy, as do
those which have followed in succession of development
with the growing year, and they become senile and
faded and are lost as they have progressively fulfilled
their function. By this time the ragwort is in bloom, and
the thistle displays its pinky blossoms ; now the males
are to be found numerously exhibiting themselves upon
these flowers, and also another equally fresh brood to
those of the spring and early summer, of females. My
friend the late Mr. Pickering, who was in the early days
of the present Entomological Society, when it held its
meetings in Old Bond Street, its honorary curator,
and who was then and always, even when less leisure
was afforded him from professional duties, a most assi-
duous and diligent observer of the habits of insects,
propounded his theory, both in conversation and before
the meetings of the Society, although he never drew up
a paper upon the subject, that these females were then
impregnated, upon which they retired to a hibernaculum,
and there remained until the breath of a new spring

HALICTUS. 219

brought them forth in all the beauty of their gay attire,
and that it was from their broods deposited thus in the
spring and early summer, that the autumnal insects
were developed. This theory is both plausible and pos-
sible, and I have no doubt that it is the correct one; and
thus is explained the total absence of males at the time
of the appearance of the females in the foremost portions
of the year ; this habit we shall find also in the Bombi.
The flowers they delight in, besides those previously
named, are among others the ribwort plantain, and the
bramble, as well as the Umbelliferce and the flowers of
the broom. The females possess two remarkable dis-
tinctions of structure not found in any of the other bees,
which consist in an articulated appendage in the centre
of the front margin of the labrum, and a vertical cleft in
the terminal segment of the abdomen, both of which
will necessarily have their uses in the economy of the
insect, although what these may be has not been dis-
covered.

They, like Andrena, are exposed to parasites and
enemies. The smaller species of Nomada infest their
smaller kinds, and St. Fargeau tells us that the Sphe-
codes are also parasitical upon them. The smallest of
the genus, which is indeed an exceedingly minute insect,
is subject to a very minute strepsipterous destroyer;
whether this be a genuine Stylops I am not aware, but
the supporting insect being so minute, in fact the
smallest of our bees, how small must be the enemv bred

ti

within it ! Another genus of this order has been found
by Mr. Dale upon them, and which is figured as the
genus Elenchus in Curtis's ' British Entomology.' The
smaller species are also attacked, upon their return home
laden, by spiders and ants. Chryses and Hedychra are

220 BRITISH BEES.

bred at their expense, and some of the Ichneumons
attack them, as well as the fossorial Hymenoptera of the
genera Cerceris, Crabro, and PMlanthus, and these
latter carry them off bodily to furnish their own nests
with pabulum. Several of the species exhale a rich
balmy odour, and, like all the Andrenida, they are
silent on the wing, and their sting is innocuous and not
painful. The males are very eager in their amours, and
are not easily repulsed.

Some of the species vary slightly in- the neuration of
the wings, and this being a rather numerous genus, al-
though not nearly approaching the extent of Andrena,
it has been proposed to make use of it for its division,
but I think this is scarcely required, it not being suffi-
ciently abundant to cause any inconvenience, the species
being so distinctly marked in their specific differences by
the aid of the metallic brilliancy of several of them. I
have therefore arranged the species in the above list in
connective order without intermission, and have placed
in juxtaposition those species which appear the closest
in affinity.

b. With two submarginal cells to the wings.

Genus 7. MACEOPIS, Panzer.
(Plate V. fig. 2 c? § .)

Gen. Char. : HEAD transverse, as wide as the thorax,
flattish; ocelli placed in a very open curve upon the
vertex ; face flat, but convex in the centre beneath the
insertion of the antennae ; clypeus very slightly convex ;
labrum transverse, narrowly lunulate ; mandibles biden-
tate ; cibarial apparatus moderately long ; tongue very

MACROPIS. 221

acute and fringed witli delicate down; paraylossa. barely
half the length of the tongue, and acute, their apex
fringed laterally w ith down ; labial palpi inserted in a
deep sinus, filiform, the basal joint the longest, the rest
diminishing both in length and substance; labium about
half the length of the entire organ, its inosculation
emarginate; maxilla hastate, rather longer than the
tongue ; maxillary pa/pi six -jointed, the basal joint the
shortest, the third the longest, the remainder diminish-
ing gradually in length, and all declining in substance
from the basal joint. THORAX oval, rather pubescent;
prothorax transverse, curving to the mesothorax, whose
bosses are inconspicuous; scutellum transverso-quadrate ;
post-scuteUum transverse linear; metathorax truncated.
WINGS with two submarginal cells, and a third com-
menced, the second about as long as the first, and re-
ceiving both the recurrent nervures, the first near its
commencement, and the second nearer its extremity;
leys robust, with the posterior tibiae and plant® densely
clothed externally with short hair; the plant® broad;
the second joint of the tarsus inserted at the lower angle
of the plantse ; claws bifid. ABDOMEN subtriangular,
truncated at its base, not longer than the thorax.

The MALE differs in having the antennae as long as the
thorax and curved ; the posterior coxae very large and
robust, the trochanters small and triangular ; the femora
large and much swollen in the centre, the posterior
tibiae very large and triangular and convex externally,
and the plantae longer than the rest of the tarsus, and
slightly curved beneath longitudinally.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. labiata, Panzer, J ? . 4-4| lines.
(Plate V. fig. 2 $ ? .)

222 BRITISH BEES.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

The name of this genus comes from pa/epos, long, and
&\lr,face, in allusion to the length of that portion of
the head, although this assumed discriminative charac-
teristic is scarcely suitable ; this again constitutes
another of the many instances wherein it would have
been much preferable to have imposed a name without
any significancy than one which is not thoroughly ap-
plicable. It is, indeed, always dangerous to attach a
name to a new genus which has reference to some indi-
vidual peculiarity, for it may eventually exhibit itself as
limited to the one single species or sex to which it was
originally applied, as to every other subsequently dis-
covered species in the genus it may be inappropriate.

Nothing, so far as I am aware, is known of the habits
of these singular insects, which, I believe, have been
caught only three times in this country and then only
the male sex.

The first, which is in the collection of the British
Museum, was brought by Dr. Leach from Devonshire ;
the second was caught in the New Forest by the late
John Walton, Esq., distinguished for his knowledge of
the British Curculionidce, and who kindly presented it to
me for my collection when I was at the zenith of my
enthusiasm for the Hymenoptera, and with that collec-
tion it passed to Mr. Thomas Desvignes, in whose pos-
session it remains ; and the third was caught by Mr.
Stevens, at Weybridge, in Surrey. Why I enter so
particularly into these circumstances is, that the genus
is extremely peculiar both for scientific position and for
structure. In the latter the male is extremely like the
male of Saropoda and its female is more like the female
Scopulipedes among the Apidce than one of the An-

MACROPIS. 223

drenidae, especially in the form of the abdomen and of
the intermediate and posterior legs, as well as in the
length of the claws and the low insertion of the posterior
joints of the tarsi upon their plantse, a peculiarity not
occurring in another genus of the Andrenidae.

I have no doubt, also, that they are very musical in
their flight and are, perhaps, as shrill-winged as is Sa-
ropoda ; whereas one of the great characteristic specia-
lities of the Andrenidee is their silence. This genus,
although restrained within the circuit of the subnormal
bees by the structure and folding of its tongue, has so
much of the habit of one of the true Apidce that it al-
most prompts the wish to resuscitate the circular systems
and place it within its own circle in analogical juxtapo-
sition to Saropoda in the circle of the Apida, where
they might impinge one upon the other. It is not often
that so rare an insect is at the same time so curious
and so suggestive. Having been found, there is no
reason why it may not be again found with due and
patient diligence ; my own experience has taught me
how easy it is even in well-hunted ground to make
rarities common, within almost a stone's throw of the
metropolis, at Hampstead, Highgate, and Battersea,
from which localities in the course of my entomological
career I have introduced to our fauna many novelties,
one of which was certainly a remarkable discovery,

v v J

from the last spot named, which it is worth recording.
A quantity of soil had been removed from the City
where an artesian well was being bored, and consequently
from varying depths, and carted thence and cast upon
the edge of the river-bank at Battersea. The following
season, from this soil, a thick and prodigious quantity of
the common mustard plant shot up, and when in flower

224 BRITISH BEES.

I happened to be collecting near the spot on the day of
our gracious Queen's coronation, when I captured mul-
titudes of a splendid large Allantus, entirely new to the
British fauna, and a choice addition to collections. This
ground had been hunted at all seasons through all bo-
tanical and entomological time, and neither had the
mustard plant been found there before nor had the in-
sect. Whence did they both come ? These observations
have certainly nothing to do with the subject in hand,
beyond suggesting that with untiring energy in the
vicinities indicated where Macropis has been already
found it may possibly turn up in abundance.

Genus 8. DASYPODA, Latreille.

MELITTA ** c, partly, Kirby.

(Plate V. fig. 3 c? ? .)

Gen. Char. : HEAD transverse; vertex glabrous ; ocelli
placed in a curved line ; antennae short, filiform, genicu-
lated, the scape thickly bearded with long hair and
scarcely half the length of the flagellum ; face and cly-
peus densely pubescent, the latter slightly convex ; labrum
transverse, linear, slightly rounded in front ; mandibles
arcuate, bidentate, the teeth acute and robust ; cibarial
apparatus moderately long ; tongue long, very acute, and
fringed with delicate hair ; paruglossffi about one-third
the length of the tongue, very slender, and acute ; the
labial palpi inserted upon the junction of the labium,
very slender, filiform, of uniform thickness, the joints
subclavate, the basal joint considerably the longest, the
second joint also long, the two terminal joints much
shorter and decreasing in length; labium about the

DASYPODA. 225

length of the tongue, its inosculation acutely triangular;
maxillce hastate, as long as the tongue ; maxillary palpi
six-jointed, rather more than halt' the length of the
inaxiilse, slender, the basal joint the most robust, the
second the longest, the rest declining both in thickness
and length. THORAX oval, densely pubescent, the divi-
sions indistinct from its density ; scutellam lunulate ;
metathorax subtruncate ; ivlnys with two submarginal
cells and a third commenced, the second receiving both
the recurrent nervures, the first close to its commence-
ment and the second just beyond its centre ; legs slender,
pubescent, especially the tibiae and plantar, the hair upon
the posterior pair being extremely dense and long, and
each hair twisted minutely spirally ; their coxae, trochan-
ters, and femora also covered with long hair; claws
bifid, the inner tooth very short. ABDOMEN oval, the
basal and fifth segments densely hairy, the superior sur-
face glabrous and shining, excepting where the white
decumbent bands broadly edge the three intermediate
segments.

The MALE differs in being more densely pubescent,
especially upon the abdomen, which is not glabrous,
and in not having the antennae geniculated ; the bands
of the abdomen are fulvous, and its legs are longer and
more slender, and it is sexually less hairy, although still
considerably so.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. hirtipes, Fab., $ ? . 6-7 lines. (Plate V. fig. 3J ? .)
Swammerdamella, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

This genus is named from the extreme hairiness of
its posterior legs, Sao-vs, hairy, TTOVS, iroZo^,Joot or leg.

Q

226 BRITISH BEES.

It is one of the most elegant of our native bees, both
in form and the extreme congruity of its habiliment.
This is unfortunately but a bridal raiment, for almost
as soon as the arduous duties of maternity supervene
these bright garments fads, and the workday suit im-
mediately shows the wear and tear produced by the
labours of life. The male flaunts about longer in the
freshness of his attire, but he is usually the assiduous
companion of his spouse, although he does not partici-
pate in her toils. They are late summer insects, and
form their burrows upon banks having a southern as-
pect; these they excavate deeper than does Andrena,
and smooth and polish them internally. They gene-
rally prefer spots intertaugled with shrubs, and at the
mouth of the cylinder they tunnel they heap up the
extracted soil, to use a portion for closing it when their
task is accomplished. In the course of this process,
especially if a cloud pass over the sun, they will come
forward to the aperture. They collect large quantities
of pollen, for which the hair upon their posterior
tibiffi and plantse is excellently well adapted both by
its length and the additional storing power it possesses
in each individual hair being spirally twisted, although
they are unprovided with the furniture of hair upon
the femora and coxae found in the genus Andrence.
Thus nature likes to vary its mode of accomplishing
the same object. The details of their nursery processes
are not known. For their protection their sting is very
virulent, and also actively employed, as they have many
enemies, especially amongst the fossorial Hymenoptera,
whom they stoutly resist to the extent of their strength.
We are not aware of any special parasites that infest
them. They are semigregarious in their habits, for

PANURGUS. 227

whore they occur any quantity of them may be taken.
They are found in their season in the southern counties,
the Isle of Wight, and in several parts of Kent and its
eastern coast, and even as near London as Charlton.
They seem to prefer the composite flowers, having a
great liking for the bastard Hawkweed and the Dande-
lion. A fine series of them forms a great ornament to
a collection.

Subfamily 2. APID/E (Normal Bees), Latreille.

Syn. APIS, Kirby.

Tongue always folded back in repose.
Maxillary palpi varying in the number of the joints.

Section 1. Solitary.
Subsection 1. SCOPULIPEDES (br'usli-legjed).

a. Femoriferee (collectors on entire leg).
f With two submarginal cells to the wings.

Genus 9. PANURGUS, Panzer.

(Plate VI. fig. 1 £ ? .)

APIS * a, Kirby.

Gen. Char.: HEAD transversely subquadrate; ocelli
in a triangle on the vertex, which, as well as the face, is
convex, the latter between the antennae carinated as far
as the clypeus; antenna short, subclavate, the second
joint of the flagellum considerably the longest, the re-
mainder equal; clypeus slightly convex; labrum trans-
versely quadrate, convex ; mandibles acutely unidentate ;
dbarial apparatus long; tongue half its entire length,
gradually acute, and fringed laterally with delicate hair;
paraglossce slender, acute, membranous, not quite half
the length of the tongue ; labial palpi more than half

Q 2

228 BRITISH BEES.

the length of the tongue, the basal joint longer than
the two following, the remainder gradually decreasing
in length, all conterminous; labium half the length of
the cibarial apparatus, broad ; maxilla slender, sub-
hastate, as long as the tongue; maxillary palpi six-
jointed, the basal joint robust, subclavate, as is the
second joint, but more slender, the remainder filiform,
gradually declining in length. THORAX oval; prothorax
inconspicuous ; mesothorax with a deep central groove ;
bosses protuberant ; scutellum and post-scutcllum lunu-
late ; metathorax gibbous ; wings with the marginal
cell slightly append iculated, two submarginal cells and a
third commenced, the second receiving both the recur-
rent nervures, the first close to its commencement and
the second beyond its centre ; the legs densely pilose,
the posterior pair having their coxa and trochanters
beneath, their femora in front, above, the tibiae and
plant (B all round, covered with long hair; claws bifid.
ABDOMEN ovate, the base subtruncate, the basal seg-
ment having a deep central impression at its base, the
fifth segment fringed with short dense hair, the terminal
segment with a triangular plate carinated in the centre,
and fimbriated laterally, and all very slightly con-
stricted.

The MALE scarcely differs, except in having the head
rather more globose and more pubescent ; and the legs,
although still hairy, much less so than in the female.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. Banksiana, Kirby, $ ? . 4-5 j lines.

ursinus, Curtis, iii. 101. (Plate VI. fig. 1 $ ? .)

2. calcaratm, Scopoli, cf ? • 3-4 lines.
ursinus, Kirby.-

PANURGUS. 229

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Tlavovpyos signifies one excessively industrious, at
least as it is applied here, although it has other less
meritorious meanings, but these insects can scarcely be
considered more energetic than any of their associates ;
perhaps the contrast made between the bright yellow
pollen and their lugubrious vestment might give the
idea of very active collecting, they being usually, upon
returning from their foray, almost entirely disguised in
the produce of their excursion. They are rather re-
markable insects from their intensely black colour and
their compact active forms ; their square head and short
clavate antennae give them a sturdy business-like ap-
pearance. They also are silent on the wing, but being
at the very van of the present subfamily, forming as
it were the advanced picket of the Apicfte, it may be
considered suitable that they should retain, by way of
partial disguise, some of the characteristics of the pre-
ceding subfamily. In many respects, therefore, they
closely approach Dasypoda : thus their legs are similarly
furnished with hair, relatively as long and having the
same spiral twist, and their whole habit is that of one of
the Andrenida, excepting that their clavate antennae,
and the folding of their tongue in repose, separate them
from that subfamily. They are local insects, but extremely
abundant when fallen upon. I used to find the first
species upon an elevated plateau, on the south side over-
hanging the Vale of Health and its large pond at H amp-
stead. Every Dandelion, for a wide circuit in the vicinity,
was crowded with individuals — assiduously collecting,
in the case of females, but basking in sunny indolence,
and revelling in the attractions of the flower, in the case

230 BRITISH BEES.

of males, and, at the same time, their burrowing spot,
which was not larger than half-a-dozen square yards,
was swarming with them, coming and going, burrowing
and provisioning. Very numerous, but not so numerous
as themselves, were their pretty parasite, the Nomada
Fabriciana, fine specimens of both sexes of which I have
constantly captured ; and a remarkable singularity per-
taining to the latter is, that some seasons it would totally
fail, and another season present itself sparsely, when,
after these lapses, it would recur in all its primitive pro-
lusion, although the Panurgus was every season equally
present. Both these insects are found during the months
of June and July, especially about the middle of the
former. In their burrows, which they perforate verti-
cally, they usually enclose about six cells, each being
duly provisioned and the egg deposited, when each is
separately closed and the orifice of the cylinder filled up.
This species is also found in Kent and Surrey, and I
have no doubt thev might be discovered in most of the

V CJ

southern counties. The smaller species, which is a good
deal like a little Tiphia, is remarkable for the peculiarity
of the male having a projecting process upon its poste-
rior femora, whence it derives its specific name, calca-
ratus, which is hardly consistent, as it is not quite the
right place for a spur. This smaller species is also found
in Kent, Hampshire, and at Weybridge, in Surrey, and
in the Isle of Wight. As well as in the Leontodon, it
likes to repose in the flowers of the Mouse-ear Hawk-
weed (Hieraciuiii) .

EUCERA. 231

b. CrurifercB (collectors on the shanks and tarsi).
f With two submarginal cell.? to the wings.

Genus 10. EuCERA, Scopoli.

(Plate VI. fig. 2 £ ? .)

APIS **dl, Kirby.

Gen. Char.: HEAD transverse; vertex concave ; ocelli
in a curve, and very high up; /#ce flattish ; clypeus very
convex, hirsute, and fimbriated ; labrum transverse-ovate,
and emarginate in front; mandibles very obtusely and
inconspicuously bidentate ; tonyue very long and slender,
and gradually acuminating, transversely striated; pa-
raylossce slender, membranous, very acute, and about
two-thirds the length of the tongue ; labial palpi mem-
branous, and about the length of the paraglossse, the
basal joint linear, broad, longer than the rest united,
the second about half its length and acuminate, the two
terminal ones are very short and equal, and articulate
within the apex of the second joint • labium less than
half the length of the tongue, its inosculation concave ;
ma.riU<e two-thirds the length of the tongue, subhastate ;
maxillary palpi six-jointed, short, less than one-third the
length of the maxillae, the basal joint robust, the rest
filiform, and gradually decreasing in length and sub-
stance. THORAX very pubescent, which conceals its
divisions; metathorax truncated; wings with two sub-
marginal cells, the second receiving both the recurrent
nervures, one near each of its extremities ; legs setose,
especially the tibiae and plantse, which, in the posterior
pair is very dense on the exterior of the tibipe, and both
externally and internally upon the plantse, the following
joints of the posterior tarsi inserted beneath, and within.

232 BRITISH BEES.

the extremity of their plants ; the claw-joint being longer
than the two preceding, and the claws acutely bifid.
ABDOMEN oval, convex above, snbtruncate at the base,
where it is thickly pubescent, the other segments gla-
brous on the disk ; the fifth segment fimbriated with
decumbent short hair, and the terminal segment having
a central triangular plate at the sides of which it is rigidly
setose.

The MALE differs in having the antennae longer than
the thorax, filiform, but with their several joints curved,
the curvature increasing towards the terminal joints, the
integument of the whole of the flagellum consisting of a
congeries of minute hexagons, the edges of which are all
raised, and the whole resembling shagreen ; the legs have
the usual sexual slighter and extended development, and
are necessarily less setose ; it is also deficient in the
transverse whitish bands of decumbent hair upon the
abdomen, which is more densely pubescent on the first
and second segments ; and the four terminal joints of
the posterior tarsi are conterminous with their plantse.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1 . longicornis, Linnreus. 6-7 lines. (Plate VI. fig. 2 c? ? .)
lonyicornis, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

This genus derives its name from the great length of
the antenn« in the male, — ev,(/ood or great, tcepas, horn.
The name of the genus is usually given from some
female characteristic, or from a p°culiarity common to
both sexes, or irrespective of any direct application, but
here we find it deduced from a feature exclusively mas-
culine. Instances of the first class we see in Colleles,

EUCERA. 233

Halictus, Andrena, Dasypoda, Panuryus, Saropoda,
Ceratina, Coelioxys, Chclostoma, Heriades, Anthocopu,
and Apathus; of the second class we have Prosopis,
Sphecodes, Macropis, Anthophora, Nomada, Melecta,
perhaps Epeohis, according to Latreille's idea, Stelis,
Anthidium, Osmia, and Bombus ; the third class com-
prises in our series merely Cilissa, and in this series the
male characteristics that have suggested the name are
just as few, being limited to the present genus. But
the males among the bees exhibit in manv cases strong

* O

and striking peculiarities which distinguish them from
their partners. Exclusively of the general distinction
expressed in their organic difference by the possession
of one additional joint to the antennae and one more
segment to the abdomen than is exhibited in the fe-
males, we find in many cases in these two parts of their
structure very marked singularities. Great sexual dif-
ferences in the length of the antennae are not restricted
to the present genus ; in fact, in most of the genera,
this is the first striking feature, but which becomes
conspicuously so in some species of Sphecodes, in most
of the Halicti, in some Nomada, in Chelosloma, Osmia,
Apathus, and Bombus. In Eucera and Sphecodes, each
joint of the flagellum is slightly curved, and in the
former the surface of those joints appears compounded
of hexagons. In Chelosloma the antennas, besides beine-

<- ' o

longer than in the female, are also very much slighter
and slightly compressed, and have a structure capable
of curling upon itself; in the female of this genus the
organ is clavate ; and in Osmia, besides their length, in
one species the male has a fringe of hair attached to
one side along the whole of the organ. In other cases,
where the antennae are not remarkably longer in the

234 BRITISH BEES.

male they have extra development by becoming thicker,
as in Mekcta ; and in Megachile the terminal joint of
their antennae is laterally dilated and compressed. In
scarcely any case are they geniculated at the scape in the
male, as they are in the female. The other genera with
clavate antennae have the same structure in both sexes,
as in Panurgus and Ceratina. Remarkable peculiarities
in the terminal ventral segment or segments of the male
may be found most conspicuously developed in Halictus,
Ccelioxys, Anthidium, Chelostoma, Heriades, Osmia, Apa-
thus, Bombus, and Apis. In Ctdioxys and Anthidium, and
some of the Osmice, this sex is further furnished with a
series of projecting spines, processes, or serrations at the
apex of the terminal dorsal segment. In Chelostoma, the
ventral structure of the male is very singular, the apex
being adapted to a mucro at the base which permits the
insect to curl up this portion of the body similarly to
its antennae, the furcated extremity of the abdomen
fitting, when thus folded, upon the mucro. It is as
well to draw observation to these peculiarities, which
give additional interest to the study of the group.

The genus Eucera appears in May and June. In
some parts they are found in large colonies; although I
have seen them abundant I never found them in this
gregarious condition, and I have usually discovered
them frequenting loamy and sandy soils ; they burrow
a cell six or eight inches deep, form an oval chamber at
its extremity, which as well as the sides of the cylinder
leading to it they make extremely smooth, and by some
process prevent its absorbing the mixture of honey and
pollen which they store for the supply of the larva, and
each contains but one young one. These, having full
fed, lie in a dormant state throughout the winter and

EUCERA. 235

do not change into pupae until mid-spring, and speedily
transform into the imago, which, until fully matured, is
closely in every part and limb covered with a thin silky
pellicle, wherein it lies as in a shroud, but at its appointed
time, regulated by some influence of which we have no
cognizance, active life becomes developed, it then casts
off its envelope and comes forth to revel in the sun-
shine, in close companionship with a partner which its
instinct promptly teaches it to find. The largest of our
native Nomadte is its parasite the N. swcincta, and
which seems wholly restricted to it, but which is often
even rare in places where the Eucera abounds. The
female, like those of the rest of the bees, is no time-
waster, but flies steadily to and fro in her occupation of
provisioning her nest, and the male often accompanies
her in these expeditions, gallantly winging about with
extreme velocity as if to divert his sedulous companion
in the fatigue of her toil, by his evolutions and his
music, which is very sonorous. And on a fine May day
it is extremely pleasant in a picturesque situation to sit
and watch the operations of these very active insects.
In their recent state, when just evolved from the nidus,
they are very elegant, being covered with a close silky
down, which labour and exposure soon abrades. It is
said that this bee deserts her nest when she finds the
stranger's egg deposited on the provender laid up in
store, or when she meets with the Nomada within, which
sometimes lays two eggs in one cell. To this she does
not deliver battle, as does the Anthophura to Melecta,
but patiently vacates the nest, leaving it to the service
of the parasite, which is also supposed to close it her-
self, having been caught with clay encrusted upon her
posterior legs. For the accuracy of this supposition I

236

BRITISH BEES.

cannot vouch, never having observed the circumstance,
nor have I seen reason to abandon the idea that the pa-
rasite has no instinct for labour of any kind, — the pre-
sence of the clay being, I expect, merely accidental, for
it is notorious that these insects have an overruling pre-
dilection for keeping themselves extremely clean.

ft With three stibmarginal cells to the ivinga.

Genus 2. ANTHOPHORA, Latreille.
(Plate VI. fig. 3, and Plate VII. fig. 1.)
APIS ** d, 2 a, Kirby.

Gen. Char.: HEAD transverse, nearly as wide as the
thorax ; vertex depressed ; ocelli placed in a curved line
upon its posterior margin; antennae short, subclavate,
basal joint of flagellum globose, its second joint longer
than the scape, very slender, the rest of the joints
subequal; face flattish; clypeus protuberant; labrum
quadrate, convex; mandibles distinctly bidentate and
obtuse ; cibarial apparatus very long ; tongue very long,
transversely striated, and with a small knob at the ex-
tremity ; paraylossae about one-third the length of the
tongue, acuminate; labial palpi slender, more than half
the length of the tongue, membranous, the basal joint
as long again as the remainder, the second joint very
slender and very acute; the two terminal joints very
short and subclavate, inserted before the extremity of
the second joint ; labium short, one-fourth the length of
the tongue, its inosculation concave ; maxillae hastate,
not so long as the tongue; maxillary palpi one-third
the length of the maxillse, six-jointed, the basal joint
very robust, the rest filiform, the second the longest,

ANTHOPHORA. 237

and all the rest decreasing iu length and substance.
THORAX oval, densely pubescent, which conceals its
divisions ; metathorax truncated ; wings with three
submarginal cells, closed, the second receives the first
recurrent nervure in its centre, and the third, which
bulges externally, receives the second at its extremity ;
legs setose, the exterior of the posterior tibia and
plantce moderately so, and the interior of the latter also
densely setose ; the second joint of the posterior tarsi
inserted beneath and within the termination of their
plantse; the claw joint longer than the two preceding;
claws bifid, the inner tooth distant from the external.
ABDOMEN ovate, subpubescent, the fifth segment densely
fimbriated and the terminal segment with an emargiuate
appendage.

In the MALES the antennae are very similar, but the
mandibles are more acutely bidentate, and with the
exception of the form of the legs, the general aspect is
like the female; the legs, although setose, are less con-
spicuously so, the intermediate tarsi in the first section
of the genus being longer than the rest of the entire leg,
and are fringed externally with very long hair, or it is
restricted to the plantse of that leg and then it is short
and very rigid ; the entire limb stretched out extends
beyond the widest expansion of the superior wings.
The ABDOMEN is also less retuse than in the female, at
its basal segment.

In the second division of this genus, of which Antho-
phora furcata may be considered to be the type, the
general habit is precisely the same, but the insects are
not so pubescent, and there is a greater similarity be-
tween the sexes. The intermediate legs also, although
long in the male, are not so extremely long as they are
in the first section.

238 BRITISH BEES.

NATIVE SPECIES.

§ Males with elongate tufted intermediate tarsi, and differing from

female in colour.

1. retusa, Linnaeus, £ ? . 6 lines. (Plate VI. fig. 3

(? ?•)
Haworthana, Kirby.

Haworthana, Curtis, viii. 357.

2. acervorum, Fabricius, <$ ? . 6-8 lines.
retusa, Kirby.

§§ Males without elongate tufted intermediate tarsi, concolorous with

their females.

3. furcata, Panzer, <J ? . 5-6 lines. (Plate VII.

fig. 1 c? ? 0
furcata, Kirby.

4. quadrimaculata, Panzer, <$ ? . 4-5 lines.
vulpina, Kirby.

subglobosa, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

The name avOos, $u>p <£&>po?, flower-rifler, would
be as suitable for any other genus of bees, and therefore
may be classed with those names which have no explicit
signification.

The two divisions which our native species of this
genus form, might very consistently constitute two ge-
nera, differing so much as they do both in habit and
habits. In the first section the males totally differ from
their females, the latter being black and the pubescence
of their partners fulvous, and whose intermediate legs
are so much longer, and are decorated besides with tufts
of hair upon their plantse, neither peculiarity being
found in those of the second section, which conform

ANTHOPHORA. 239

more regularly to the ordinary type of structure. The
first section also nidificate gregariously, forming enor-
mous colonies which consist of many hundreds; whereas
the second are solitary nidificators, and at most half-a-
dozen may be found within as many square yards of
territory, and one species, the A.furcata, diverges con-
siderably from the ordinary habits of the genus, and
closely approaches those of the foreign genus Xylocopa,
but its structure necessarily retains it within the boun-
daries of the genus. All these insects exhibit the pecu-
liar characteristic of the Scopulipedes, in the insertion of
the second joint of the posterior tarsi at the very bottom
of their plants, conjunctively with the polliniferous
scopa, placed externally upon their tibise and plantse, in
which characteristics the Andrenoid Macropis remark-
ably resembles them, and which I have noticed in my
remarks upon that genus.

The first section burrows in banks, where their colo-
nies are extremely numerous. In the tunnels which
they form they construct several elliptical cells which
they line with a delicate membrane of a white colour,
formed by a secretion or saliva derived from the di-
gestion of either the pollen or the honey which they
consume. Each cell when formed is stored as usual,
and the egg deposited, and then it is closed. There is
but little variation in these processes among all the
solitary bees, excepting in the case of the artisan bees
and the more elaborate processes of Colletes, in which,
however, the casing is merely thicker, arising from
several layers of the coating membrane. The perfect
insects make their appearance during the spring and
summer months, their successive maturity being the
result of the previous summer and autumn deposit of

210 BRITISH BEES.

eggs. They pass the winter and spring in the larva
state, and undergo their transformations into pupa and
imago with but slight interval, and only shortly before
the appearance of the perfect insect. When first pre-
senting themselves they are certainly very handsome
insects, and if carefully killed preserve their beauty for
many years in the cabinet. I have found the retusa,
Linn., (Kirby's Haworthana,} in enormous profusion at
Hampstead Heath, indeed, so numerous were they, that
late in the afternoon, upon approaching the colony, they,
in returning home, would strike as forcibly against me
as is often done by Melolontha vulyaris or Geotrupes
stercorarius. In equal abundance I have found the
A. acervorum at Charlton, where I have experienced
a similar battery. This is the insect which Gilbert
White, in his letters from Selborne, describes as having
found in numbers at Mount Caburn, near Lewes, a spot
I have often visited in my schoolboy days. This sec-
tion is subject to the parasitism of the genus Melecta,
whose incursions are very repugnant to them, and which
they exhibit in very fierce pugnacity, for if they catch
the intruder in her invasion they will draw her forth and
deliver battle with great fury. I have seen both the
combatants rolling in the dust, the combat and escape
made perhaps easier to the Melecta by the load the
Anihophora was bearing home. Upon the larva also of
this bee it is said that the larva of the Heteromerous
genus Meloe is nurtured ; this I have never been able to
verify, but I believe the fact is fully confirmed. This
beetle is closely allied to the Cantharides, or blister-
beetles, and it itself exudes a very acrimonious yellow
liquid when touched or irritated. Two of the Chalci-
didae also infest their larvse, which they destroy ; one is

ANTHOPHORA. 241

tlie Melittobia , named thus from its preying upon bees;
it,, like the majority of its tribe, is exceedingly minute,
and of a shining dark green metallic colour. It is pe-
culiar from having its lateral eyes simple, and in possess-
ing besides three ocelli. The other genus is Monodonto-
meris, an equally small insect, which, although living
upon the larva of Anthophora, is equally preyed upon by
that of the Melittobia. The universal scourge, Forficula,
is a great devastator of these colonies, where, of course,
it revels in its destructive propensities.

The insects of the second division I have never been
able to track to their burrows, but have always caught
them either on the wing or on flowers, especially upon
those of the common Mallow, and I have found both spe-
cies all round London. They are said also to frequent the
Dead Nettle (Lamium purpureum). The A. quadrima-
culata burrows in banks, and its processes are scarcely
different from those of the preceding species, only its
habits are solitary. In flight it is exceedingly rapid,
and thus much resembles Saropoda. But the A. furcata
bores into putrescent wood, in which it forms a longi-
tudinal pipe subdivided into nine or ten oval divisions,
separated from each other by agglutinated scrapings of
the same material, very much masticated, the closing of
each forming a sharp sort of cornice ; each of these cells
is about half an inch in length, and three-tenths of an
inch in diameter, the separations between them being
about a line thick. These pipes or cylinders run parallel
to the sides of the wood thus bored, an angle being
made both at its commencement and its termination,
and thus the latter permits the ready escape of the de-
veloped imago nearest that extremity, which being the
first deposited, that cell being the first constructed, it

R

242 BRITISH BEES.

necessarily becomes the first transmuted, and thus has
not to wait for the egress of all above it.

All these insects are usually accompanied by their
partners in their flight, and their amorous intercourse
takes place upon the wing.

Genns 12. SAROPODA, Lalreille.

(Plate VII. fig. 2 cJ ? .)

APIS ** d, 2, a, Kirby.

Gen. Char. : HEAD transverse, as wide as the thorax,
very pubescent ; ocelli placed in a triangle, the anterior
one low towards the face ; vertex slightly concave ; an-
tenna short, filiform, basal joint of flagellum globose,
the second joint subclavate and the longest, the rest
short and equal ; face flattish, short : clypeus forming
an obtuse triangle, slightly convex; labrum quadrate,
with the angles rounded ; mandibles obtusely bidentate ;
cibarial apparatus long ; tongue very long and slender,
but gradually expanding towards half its length and then
as gradually tapering to the extremity and terminating
in a small knob, its sides throughout being fimbriated
with short delicate down ; paruylossa one-third its
length, membranous, very delicate, and tapering to a
point; labial palpi slender, membranous, the joints con-
terminous, the basal joint more than half the length of
the tongue, the remainder short, the second the longest
of these three, and all tapering to the pointed apical
one ; labium scarcely one-third as long as the tongue,
rather broad, bifid at its inosculation ; maxilla nearly as
long as the tongue, gradually diminishing from its basal
sinus to a point at its extremity ; maxillary palpi four-

SAROPODA. 2i3

jointed, about one-third the length of the maxillse, the
basal joint short, robust, the second tapering from its
base to the third joint, which is rather shorter and sub-
clavate, the terminal joint slender. THORAX very pu-
bescent, rendering its divisions inconspicuous ; scutellum
and post-scutdlum luuulate and convex ; metathorax
truncated ; ivinys as in Anthopliora, with three marginal
cells closed, the second forming a truncated triangle,
and receiving the first recurrent nervure near its centre,
the third bulging outwardly and receiving the second
recurrent nervure at its extremity ; legs very setose,
especially the posterior tibi&e externally, and their plantee
both externally and internally, but the setae are longer
on the exterior of the joint, the second joint of these
tarsi inserted beneath, and before the termination of
their plantre, the terminal joint longer than the two
preceding; claws bifid, the inner tooth distant from the
apex. ABDOMEN subovate, very convex, truncated at its
base, where it is densely pubescent, the fifth segment fim-
briated with stiff setse,. and the terminal segment having
a central triangular plate with rigid setse at its sides.

The MALE scarcely differs, excepting in the charac-
teristic sexual disparities of slightly longer antennae, and
considerably longer intermediate tarsi, whose apical joint
is very clavate.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. bimaculata, Panzer. <$ ? . 4-5 lines. (Plate

VII. fig. 2 <? ? .)
bimacidata, Kirby.
rotundata, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

The name of this genus is as applicable to the sub-

R 2

244 BRITISH BEES.

section as to the genus itself, a-dpos, brush, 7701)9 770809,
afoot, in allusion to their polliniferous posterior legs.

We have but one species, but it is very characteristic ;
for, although retaining several of the features of the
second division of Anthophora (in the colouring of the
face it participates with the males of both divisions),
yet has it still a marked physiognomy of its own ; it
retains the normal colouring of bees generally, but its
strongest distinction from that division of Anthophora
is the shortness of the antennae in the female, as in the
length of the intermediate legs of the male it would
seem to form a link between the two divisions, could a
distinct genus stand in such a position, and would al-
most import the necessity of elevating that division to
generic rank, as hinted at in the observations under
Anthophora. In the large development of its claws it
seems to point to an economy somewhat differing from
that second division, but nobody appears to have traced
it to its nidus. I have often captured it at Battersea
upon the Mallow, together with A. quadrimaculata, but
the singular velocity of its flight might indicate a very
distant domicile, — in a few minutes it could traverse
miles. The electrical vivacity and rich opaline tint of
its eyes has been often observed, but this, unfortunately,
fades with death ; yet so marked is it that it has called
forth the distinct observation of a Panzer and a Kirby.
Besides the Mallow it has been observed to frequent the
Heaths, and were its habits better known would be found,
I have no doubt, to visit many other flowers, for Curtis
took it in the Isle of Wight sleeping in the great Knap-
weed, Centaurea scabiosa. I have never caught it laden.

I have hazarded the conjecture in a different part of
this work that the music of the bees might be attuned

CERATINA. 245

to a musical scale by associating the different species in
the due gradation of their varying tones. Here we have
one of the most musical of the tribe, — not a monotonous
dull sleepy hum, but a fine contralto, the very Patti
amongst the bees. But it is rapidity of motion which
in them intensifies the note they chant, and the velo-
city of the flight of this insect is something remarkable.
They dart about with almost the rapidity of a flash of
lightning, and this swiftness of approach and retreat
modulates their accents.

Under the head " Macropis " I have pointed to some
strong resemblances between this genus and that.

Genus 13. CERATINA, Latreille.

(Plate VII. fig. 3 <J ? .)

Apis**J2, a, Kirby.

Gen. Char. : HEAD transverse, convex, glabrous ; ocelli
placed in a triangle on the vertex, which is, as well as
the face, convex ; antenna short, subclavate, each in-
serted in a separate deep cavity in the centre of the face,
the first joint of the flagellum globose, the second the
longest of all and slender at its base, but all gradually
enlarging to the extremity; clypeus very gibbous; la-
brum quadrate, convex ; cibarial apparatus long ; tongue
long and tapering, and with a minute knob at its ex-
tremity ; paraglossa obsolete; labial palpi three-fourths
as long as the tongue, the two first joints membranous
and diminishing in width, the second joint rather shorter
than the basal one and acute at its extremity, and exter-
nally before its termination the two very short terminal
ones are inserted ; labium half the length of the tongue,

246

BRITISH BEES.

with a lozenge-shaped inosculation ; maxillae as long as
the tongue, broad at the base, whence it abruptly acu-
minates to the slender apex ; maxillary palpi six-jointed,
filiform, the three first joints subequal, the three ter-
minal gradually decreasing in length. THORAX oval,
glabrous ; prothorax inconspicuous ; mesothorax with a
central basal groove, the bosses conspicuous and shin-
ing ; scutellum and post-scutellum lunulate ; metathorax
subtruncate ; wings with three submarginal cells and a
fourth slightly commenced, the second in the form of a
truncated triangle, the third considerably larger than
the second, and each receiving a recurrent nervure just
beyond the centre ; legs plumose but not densely so, the
hair very long within the posterior tibiae, but denser
and shorter on its exterior; the posterior plant® also
plumose, and all the joints of the posterior tarsi conter-
minous; claws bifid. ABDOMEN glabrous, subclavate,
very convex above and flat beneath, subtruncate at the
base, and the basal segments slightly constricted.

The MALE scarcely differs, excepting in the clypeus
being less gibbous, the legs not plumose, and the sixth
segment of the abdomen carinatecl in the centre towards

O

its extremity, and impending over the seventh, which
is transversely gibbous, then depressed, and with an ob-
tuse process at its extremity.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. carulea, Villers, rf ? . 2-3 lines. (Plate VII.

fig. 3 rf ? •)
cyanea, Kirby.

2. albilabris, Fabricius, <$ ? . 2£ lines.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

This genus is named from the presence of a little

CERATINA. 247

horn between its antennae, Keparlvrj, a horn. Some
foreign entomologists, especially Latreille and Le Pelle-
tier de St. Fargeau, have considered it to be parasitical,
but that it is not so we have the authority of the Mar-
quis Spinola, of Genoa, confirmed by the testimony of
' Mr. Thwaites, a very accurate observer, in the vicinity of
Bristol, where the insect is not at all uncommon, al-
though extremely rare in most other parts, and conse-
quently usually a desideratum to cabinets, from its great
beauty both of form and colour, notwithstanding that it
is so very small in size. It has also been found in other
localities, as at Birchwood, where the late Mr. Bambridge
used to take it, and as near London as Charlton, at
both which places I have no doubt it might frequently
be found were it carefully looked for, but the practised
entomological eye is often wanting to detect an insect
unless it be conspicuously present. Its usual nidus is a
bramble or briar stick, from which it excavates the pith,
and this it has been frequently observed doing, and both
sexes have been repeatedly bred from such sticks. AYe
have no notice of any peculiarity in its mode of form-
ing its cells, which may resemble that of such wood-
boring genera as Chelostoma and Heriades, although its
structure would intimate a closer affinity to the habits of
the exotic genus Xyfacopa ; nor is there extant any ac-
count of the process or time occupied in the development
of its young. Spinola's notion, from not seeing the
sufficiency of the hair upon the posterior tibiae for the
purpose, assumed that the pollen was conveyed home
on the forehead and between the antennae, he having
caught an insect with some pollen accidentally incrusted
there in the insect's honey-seeking excursion. The
hair upon these legs is very sparse, it is true, but then it

248 BRITISH BEES.

is very long, 'and the quantity of pollen required for the
nurture of the larva is evidently small, from its having
been observed that the store upon which the egg is de-
posited is semiliquid, thus preponderating in the admix-
ture of honey.

That it has not been caught laden with pollen upon
its legs has no weight against the fact of its non-para-
sitism, for it is not always that the excursions of bees
are made for the purpose of collecting pollen. Honey
is as necessary to their economy — and in this case per-
haps more so — as pollen, and the only way to determine
the fact of its carrying pollen, corroboratively, would
be when knowing that one of these bees has visited a
bramble stick — its presumptive nidus, — to watch the
stick very patiently for the insect's return from every
journey until it came back laden ; the presence of
pollen upon its legs would surely be indicated by the
difference of its colour from the ordinary dark hue of
the little labourer.

We have already noticed bees with metallic hues
among the Halicti, and there are slight indications of it
in some of the Andrence, for instance, in the A. cinerea
and the A. nigro-tenea, etc., but in none hitherto so
absolutely is it exhibited as in this genus. The preva-
lent colour of the bees, that is to say, the ground colour
of the integument, and not the fleeting one of the pu-
bescence, is black or brown, but here we have a positive
metallic tinge, which we shall again come across in
many shades and hues in the genus Osmia.

A second species of the genus was brought from
Devonshire by Dr. Leach, and is in the collection of the
British Museum, but no other specimens of the same
species have since been found.

NOMADA. 249

•

The only flower which it has been noticed that they
frequent is the Viper's Bugloss (Echium vulgare}.

Subsection 2. NUDIPEDES (naked-legged Cuckoo Bees),
a. With three submarginal cells to the wings,

Genus 14. NOMADA, Fabricius.
(Plates VIII., IX., X.)

Gen. Char.: HEAD transverse; ocelli in a triangle on
the vertex; antennas filiform, scarcely geniculated, the
scape short, the basal joint of the flagellum subglobose,
the second joint clavate, the remainder subequal ; face
flat, or slightly concave, carinated longitudinally in the
centre between the insertion of the antennae; clypeus
subtriangular, convex, deflected at the lateral angles;
labrum subcircular, very gibbous and protuberant;
mandibles acute or subbidentate ; tongue long, acute;
paraglossfK about one-fourth its length, acute; labial
palpi two-thirds the length of the tongue, the two basal
joints membranous, the basal one as long as the rest
united, and tapering to its extremity, the second joint
less than half the length of the first, and not wider at
its base than the apex of the first joint, and tapering
like that to its end, where it is acute, the third joint
short, subclavate, and the terminal one half the length
of the preceding, very slender and linear ; labium about
one-half the length of the tongue, and at its inosculation
produced obtusely in the centre; maxilla subhastate,
about the length of the tongue ; maxillary palpi six-
jointed, the basal joint short, robust, subclavate, the
second the longest, and with the rest tapering in sub-
stance and diminishing in length to the extremity, the

250 BRITISH BEES.

terminal joint being very little shorter than the preced-
ing. THORAX ovate ; prothorax inconspicuous, or distinct
and angulated laterally ; mesolhorax glabrous, deeply
punctulated ; its bosses conspicuous and prominent ;
scutellum divided into two very prominent tubercles;
post-scutellum linear, convex; metathorax with a tri-
angular space at its base, and declining to the insertion
of the abdomen; wings with three submargmal cells,
and a fourth very slightly commenced, the first as long
as the two following, and each of which receives a re-
current nervure about its centre ; leys subspinose exter-
nally on the tibiee, and not polliniferous ; claws of tarsi
small and not bifid. .ABDOMEN oval, glabrous, shining;
terminal segment triangular, with its sides ridged.

The MALE scarcely differs, excepting in sometimes
being more profusely adorned with colour, but this is not
always the case, the female being often the most ornate.
There are very slight differences in the antennae in the
sexes, which may be readily associated together.

NATIVE SPECIES.

§ With filiform antennae.

1. sex-fasciata, Panzer, $ ? . 5-6 lines. (Plate

vm. fig. 3 <y ?.)

Schcefferella, Kirby.
connexa, Kirby.

2. Goodemana, Kirby, $ ? . 4-5 lines. (Plate VIII.

fig. 1 <? ? •)
? succincta, Panzer.

3. alternata, Kirby, $ ? . 4-5 lines.
Marshamella, Kirby.

4. Lathburiana, Kirby, £ ? . 4-5^ lines. (Plate

VIII. fig. 2 c?. ? .)

NOMADA. 251

5. varia, Panzer, $ ? . 4-44 lines.
varia, Kirby.

fucata, Kirby.

6. ruficornis, Linnaeus, <J $ .
ruficornis, Kirby.
leucophthalma, Kirby.
flava, Kirby.

7. lateralis, Panzer, ^ ? . 4-4^ lines. (Plate X.

fig. 3 cJ ? .)

8. ochrostoma, Kirby, £ $ . 4-4^ lines.
Hi liana, Kirby.

9. signata, Jurine, c? ? . 4-5 lines. (Plate IX.

fig. 1 c? ? 0

10. borealis, Zettersteclt, $ ? . 3^-5 lines.

11. lineola, Panzer, <$ ? . 4-6 lines.
cornigera, Kirby.
subcornuta, Kirby.

CaprefB, Kirby.
sex-cincta, Kirby.

12. xanthosticta, Kirby, $ ? . 2-2 f lines.

13. flavo-guttata, Kirby, <$ ? . 2-3 lines. (Plate IX.

fig. 3 c? ? .)

14. furva, Panzer, <$ ? . 2-2 1 lines.
rufocincla, Kirby.
Sheppardana, Kirby.

Dalii, Curtis.

15. Germanica, Panzer, <$ $ 4 lines.
ferruffinata, Kirby.

16. Fabriciana, Linnseus, £ ? . 3^-5 lines. (Plate

IX. fig. 2 c? ? .)
Fabriciella, Kirby.
quadrinotata, Kirby.

17. armata, Schaeffer, ^ ? . 5-5 \ lines.

252 BRITISH BEES.

Kirbii, Stephens.

§§ With subclavate anfennee.

18. Jacobea, Panzer, $ ? . 4-4^ lines. (Plate X.

%. 1 $ ? .)
Jacobece, Kirby.
flavopicta, Kirby.

19. Solidaginis, Panzer, $ ? . 3|-4 lines. (Plate X.

fig. 2 <J ? .)
picta, Kirby.
rufopicta, Kirby.

20. Roberjeotiana, Panzer, £ ? . 3 lines.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

This genus was named by Fabricius from the Nomades,
a pastoral Scythian tribe, in allusion to the assumed
wandering habits of the insects, and it is the fact indeed
that they are usually found leisurely hovering about
hedgerows, or the banks enclosing fields, or about the
metropolis or nidus of any bee upon which they are
parasitical. They are the gayest of all our bees, their
colours being red or yellow intermixed with black, in
bands or spots; they are also very elegant in form,
which is after the type of that of the most normal An-
drenidce, and to which they have a further affinity by
the silence of their flight, and by their parasitism upon
many of the species of that subfamily. From their
very general resemblance to wasps in colour they are
often mistaken for wasps, and are popularly called wasp-
bees, although they have none of the virulence of that
vindictive tribe, for although all the females are armed
with stings, they are not prompt in their use, or if
roused to defence the puncture is but slight. In addi-

NOMADA. 253

tion to their prettiness of colour and elegance of form,
they have a further attraction in the agreeable odours
they emit, sometimes of a balmy or balsamical, and
sometimes of a mixed character, and often as sweet as
the pot-pourri, and occasionally pleasantly pungent. A
fine string of specimens of the several species is a great
ornament to a collection, but to secure this in its per-
fection some care is required in the mode of killing
them. Their colours are best permanently retained by
suffocating them with sulphur, which fixes the reds and
yellows in all their natural and living purity. My
method was in my collecting excursions to convey with
me a large store of pill-boxes of various sizes, and as
I captured insects in my green gauze bag-net, I trans-
ferred them separately to these boxes. When home
again I lifted the lids slightly on one side and placed as
many as would readily go beneath a tumbler, and then
fumigated them with the sulphur. This is a better
plan than killing them with crushed laurel- leaves, for it
leaves the limbs much longer flexible for the purposes
of setting, whereas the laurel has a tendency to make
them rigid, and this rigidity is extremely difficult to
relax, whereas the setting of those killed with sulphur,
if they are kept in a cool place, may be deferred for a
few days, until leisure intervene to permit it, and even
then if they become stiffened they are readily relaxed
for the purpose.

A division might very consistently be established in
the genus by the separation of those which have sub-
clavate antennae, and the segments of whose abdomen
are slightly constricted ; these also are more essentially
midsummer insects, and usually frequent the Ragwort.
This is the only genus of parasites amongst the true

254 BRITISH BEES.

bees whose parasitism is directed exclusively upwards
in the scientific arrangement ; the parasitism of all the
rest of the genera of Nudipedes bears upon the genera
below them in the series. Some of the species of the
Nomada attack more than one species or one genus,
but the majority are strictly limited to but one genus
and one species. The genera obnoxious to this annoy-
ance are Andrena, Halictus, Panurgus, and Eucera ; the
latter two have but one of these enemies each, the No-
mada Fabriciana infesting the Panurgus Banksianus,
and the N. sexfasciata frequenting the Eucera longicornis.
Under Panurgus I have alluded to the relative abun-
dance of the parasite at the metropolis of its sitos. As
far as known, the other species are thus distributed.
Those frequenting several indifferently are the Nomada
alternata, Lathburiana, succinct a, and ruficornis, which
are found to infest Andrena Trimmer ana, tibialis, Afze-
liella, an&fulva, without displaying any choice ; whereas
others confine themselves to one sitos exclusively : thus
Nomada ochrostoma limits itself to Andrena labialis ;
N. Germanica to A. fulvescens ; N. later alls to A. lon-
gipes ; N. baccata to A. argentata ; N. borealis to A.
Clarkella ; N. Fabriciana to Panurgus Banksianus ; and
N. sexfasdata to Eucera longicornis. Observation has
not yet fully determined whither each species of Nomada
conveys its parasitism ; several infest the Halicti, espe-
cially the smaller species ; the association of these it is
difficult to determine; I have usually found several
of the small Halicti burrowing together in the vertical
surface of an enclosure bank, and several of the small
Nomada hovering cautiously opposite, now alighting and
entering a burrow, then retreating backwards and wing-
ing off. I lost patience in endeavouring to combine the

MELECTA. 255

species by the aid of blades of grass or slight straws
thrust into the aperture,, but the crumbling nature of
the soil frustrated ray wishes, and I abandoned the at-
tempt. This field of observation is widely open to the
exertions of observing naturalists, and the novelty of
their discoveries would well reward the toil of the un-
dertaking, for it would not be long before they gathered
fruit.

Genus 15. MELECTA, Latreilk.

(Plate XI. fig. !<??.)

APIS ** a, Kirby.

Gen. Char. : HEAD transverse, scarcely so wide as the
thorax; ocelli in a triangle on the vertex; antennae fili-
form, rather robust, and but slightly geniculated, the
scape not longer than the two following joints, the se-
cond joint of the flagellum the longest and clavate, the
rest short, nearly equal, and the terminal one laterally

«/

compressed at its extremity ; face flat, very pubescent ;
clypeus short transverse, lunulate, convex; labrum irre-
gularly gibbous, obovate ; mandibles strongly bidentate ;
tongue long, slightly expanding towards the middle and
thence tapering to the extremity, and with a central
line; paraylossa scarcely lialf the length of the tongue,
almost setiform, but robust at the base ; labial palpi
more than half the length of the tongue, the two first
joints membranous and very slender, the fiist longer
than the rest united, the second about half the length
of the first, and terminating acutely, the third not more
than one-fourth the length of the second, and inserted
laterally before its termination, the fourth about as long

256 BRITISH BEES.

as the third, and, like it, subclavate, both being more
robust than the second ; labium not half the length of
the tongue, and acutely triangular at its inosculation ;
maxillae subhastate, not quite so long as the tongue ;
maxillary palpi five-jointed, about one-third the length
of the maxillae, the basal joint clavate, short, and robust ;
the second elongate, subclavate, the remainder gradually
but slightly diminishing in substance and length, the
terminal not so long as the basal joint. THORAX very
retuse, and its divisions scarcely distinguishable ; scu-
tellum bidentate ; metathorax abruptly truncated ; ivings
with three closed submarginal cells, the second the
smallest, irregularly triangular, and receiving the first
recurrent nervure just beyond its centre, the third sub-
marginal considerably larger than the second, sublunu-
late, but angulated externally and receiving the second
recurrent nervure about its centre ; the legs robust and
spinulose, especially the tibise externally (where they are
very convex) and the femora beneath ; the claivs short,
strong and bifid. The ABDOMEN conical, truncated, and
retuse at its base, the apical segment with a central
triangular plate ridged laterally, and fimbriated at its
sides with strong setse.

The MALE scarcely differs in personal appearance,
excepting that its antennae are more robust and its
ornamental pubescence is more profuse, its posterior
tibise very robust and almost triangular, and the termi-
nal segment of its abdomen slightly emargiuate and con-
cave at its extremity.

NATIVE SPECIES.

\.punctata, Fabricius, $ ? . 6 lines. (Plate XI.
fig. 1 c? ? •)

MELECTA. 257

? Atropos, Newman.
? Lachesis, Newman.
2. armata, Panzer, J ? . 6-7 lines.
punctata, Kirby.
? Tisiphone, Newman.
? Alecto, Newman.
? Clot ho, Newman.
? Megtera, Newman.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Named from yu,e)u, honey, Xeyw, / collect ; which is
scarcely the case, for the parasites, although they may
indulge in the luxury of honey as epicures, or resort to
it as a repast, cannot be said to collect it, for it is only
the labouring bees that truly collect it for the purpose
of storing.

These insects are extremely handsome, their ground-
colour being intensely black, brightly shining on the
abdomen, upon the segments of which it is laterally
ornamented with silvery pubescent tufts and spots ; the
black legs are also variously ringed with similar silver
down. The great variation these spots and markings
undergo — from what cause we know not — has induced
several entomologists to consider them as distinct spe-
cies. But the strongest varieties so rarely recur with
identical ornaments, and as almost all can be closelv

v

connected together in a regular series by interlacing
differences impossible to divide, it would be certainly
incorrect^ without stronger characteristics, to raise such
fugitive variations to specific rank. Whether the cu-
rious spines of the scutellum which they possess fur-
nish a more certain character is doubtful, for we find
all such processes equally liable to variation in size and

s

258 BRITISH BEES.

form. What can be the uses of these spines ? They
can hardly be for defence, although an entomologist
has said that a male which he held endeavoured to
pinch by that means. We find similar processes in
the same situation in Ccehoxys, equally a parasitical
genus; but the former genus infests the Scopulipedes
and the latter the Dasygasttrs, whose economies are
so very different, and thus it can hardly be supposed
to have reference to habits. In Epeolus and Stelis the
same part is mucronated, a tendency to which we see in
the Nomadte with subclavate antennae. Under Autlio-
phora I have given an account of the pugnacious spirit
of these insects in their contests with the sitos, and it is
necessary to be cautious in handling them, as they sting
very severely. Our two native species are parasitical
upon the two species of the first division of Anthophora,
— those which are gregarious. The circumstance of Mc-
lecta being often caught with many of the extremely
young larvse of Meloe upon it seems to confirm the fact
of this coleopterous insect preying upon Anthophora, as
it may be thus assumed to prey simultaneously upon the
larva of Melecta. I have never captured these insects
upon flowers, nor can I trace what flowers they fre-
quent, although Latreille tells us, in the name he has
imposed, that they are honey collectors; but Curtis re-
ports that he has found the genus upon the common
furze or whin (Ulex Europeans).

Genus 16. EPEOLUS, Latreille.
(Plate XI. fig. 2 c? ? •)

APIS ** b, Kirby.
Gen. Char. : BODY glabrous. HEAD transverse, ver-

EPEOLUS. 259

tex convex ; ocelli placed in a triangle on its summit ;
antennae short, linear, the joints of the flagellum sub-
equal; face flat, carinated longitudinally in its centre
between the insertion of the antennae ; clypeus trans-
verse, lunulate, convex, margined anteriorly ; labrum
transversely ovate, with a small process in the centre in
front ; mandibles bidentate, the internal tooth minute,
the external robust and broad ; tongue rather long, more
than twice the length of the labiinn, tapering to its ex-
tremity ; paraylossa short, about one-fourth the length
of the tongue, broad at the base, and acuminate towards
the apex ; labial palpi more than half the length of the
tongue, the basal joint longer than the three following,
membranous, and gradually decreasing to the second,
which is one-third the length of the first, and acute at
its apex, where the third subclavate joint is articulated,
the terminal joint considerably shorter than the third ;
labium not more than one-third the length of the tongue,
and trifid at its inosculation, the central division beiua-

7 o

hastate ; maxillce subhastate, more than one-half the
length of the tongue ; maxillary palpi consisting of one
robust short conical joint inserted in a deep circular re-
ceptacle. THORAX subglobose; prothorax conspicuous,
with its lateral angles slightly prominent; mesothora.c
with its bosses prominent ; wing scales large ; scutel-
lum transverse, gibbous, margined posteriorly, slightly
rnucronated laterally, slightly depressed in the centre,
and impending over the post-scutellum, which is inap-
pareut; metathorax abruptly truncated; wings with
three submarginal cells, and a fourth feebly commenced,
the first as long as the, two following, the second subtri-
angular, and receiving the first recurrent nervure abouc
its centre, and the third lunulate, and receiving the

s 2

260 BRITISH BEES.

second recurrent nervure also about the centre; leps
short, stout, the tibiae slightly spinulose externally ; claws
very small, short, robust and simple. ABDOMEN obtusely
conical, truncated at the base, its terminal segment tri-
angular, and the lateral margins slightly reflected.

The MALE scarcely differs, excepting in the usual male
characteristics, and that the apical segment of the ab-
domen is rounded and margined.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. variegatus, Linneeus, £ ? . 3-4 lines. (Plate XL

fig. 2 c? ? •)
varieyatus, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

It is difficult to assign a reason for the name of this
genus, or to trace an applicable derivation from eVtaAo?,
for the insect in no way suits, either directly or by anti-
phrase, any of the significations of this word. It is one
of the prettiest of our little bees, and is parasitical upon
the CoUttes Daviesiana,and it may be found in abundance
wherever the metropolis of this species occurs. There
is one special locality near Bexley, in Kent, a vertical
sandbank within a few hundred yards of the village,
where I have always found it in the spring months, and
have there taken it as numerously as I wished. I have
already alluded, in another part of this work, to the
uniformly greater beauty of the parasitical bees, to those
which they infest, and their exceedingly different appear-
ance in every case excepting in that of the genus Apa-
thus. We might have expected that they would have
been disguised like these, the better to carry on their
nefarious practices, but what can well be more dissimilar
than Epeolus and Collates, or than Nomada and all its

EPEOLUS. 261

supporters, and the same of Melecta, CwUoocys, and Stdis.
These facts puzzle investigation for a reason; nor -will
the perplexity be speedily solved. All that we can sur-
mise is that there must be a motive for it, for wherever
we successfully elicit her secret from the veiled goddess,
we invariably find the reason founded in profound wis-
dom. In some cases the mystery seems devised to test
our sagacity, but it cannot be so here, for the most pal-
pable and plausible cause that would suggest itself in the
supposition of its being for the guardianship and apprisal
of the sitos is often contravened, as in this instance, by
it and its parasite living in great harmony together,
again by the desertion of its nidus by Eucera in favour
of the parasite, although itself is a very much more power-
ful insect ; but in the cases of Panuryus, Halictus, and
Andrena, they all live well reconciled to the intrusion
of the stranger's young, and this, without their enumera-
tion, may be adopted as nearly the universal case. The
hostility of Anthophora, previously noticed, is an almost
insulated case of the contrary. The form of these insects
does not promise much activity, and we accordingly find
that they are slow, heavy, and indolent ; yet they must
be cautiously handled, for they sting acutely ; but in-
deed it is not well ever to handle insects whose mark-
ings, as we find them in these, consist of a close nap, as
evanescent as the. down upon a plum, and of course the
fingers carry it readily off, and disfigure the beauty of
the little specimen. When their special habitat is not
known they may often be found upon the blossoming
Ragwort in the vicinity, or upon the Mouse-ear Hawk-
weed (Hieracium murorum) within whose flowers they
are frequently observed enjoying their siesta.

262 BRITISH BEES.

b. With two submarginal cells.

Genus 17. STELIS, Panzer.

(Plate XI. fig. 3 $ ? .)
APIS ** c, I /3, Kirby.

Gen. Char. : BODY glabrous, much punctured. HEAD
transverse, curving posteriorly to the thorax, where it is
angulated laterally ; ocelli in a triangle at the summit
of the vertex ; antennae short, slender, filiform, scarcely
geniculated, the scape about as long as the three first
joints of the flagellum, all the joints of which are sub-
equal but slightly increasing in length towards the apical
one, which is a little compressed laterally ; face entirely
flat ; clypeus transverse, rather convex ; labrum elongate,
convex ; mandibles robust, tridentate, the external tooth
considerably the stoutest ; cibarial apparatus long, tongue
three times as long as the labium, slightly inflated in the
centre, and terminating in a small knob; paraglossae
very short, not more than one-sixth the length of the
tongue and acuminate ; labial palpi about two-thirds
the length of the tongue, the two first joints membra-
nous, the basal one the most robust, and both tapering
to an acute apex, shortly before which the two very short
subclavate terminal joints articulate ; labium about one»
third the length of the tongue, its inosculation trifid,
the central division considerably the longest and trun-
cated at its extremity ; maxillce subhastate, nearly as long
as the tongue, acutely acuminated towards their apex ;
maxillary palpi very short, two-jointed, the basal joint
subclavate and slightly the longest, and%inserted in a
circular cavity, the terminal joint short ovate, THORAX
subglobose ; prothorax inconspicuous ; mesothorax very
convex ; scutellum lunulate, very gibbous, and impending

STELIS. 2G3

over the post-scutellum and metathorax, mucronated
laterally ; metathorax abruptly truncated ; wings with
two submarginal cells, and a third very slightly com-
menced, the two subequal, the second being the largest
and receiving the first submarginal cell near its com-
mencement and the second at the inosculation of the
terminal trausverso-cubital nervure; legs short, mode-
rately stout, the tibiae very slightly setose externally;
chnvs short, bifid, the internal tooth near the external.
ABDOMEN oblong, truncated at its base, very convex above
and flat beneath, deflexed towards its extremity, and the
terminal segment almost rounded, being very slightly
produced in the centre and margined.

The MALE scarcely differs, excepting in the usual male
characteristics, and by the apical segment being obso-
letely tridentate.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. aterrima, Panzer, $ ? . 4-4| lines.
punctulatissima, Kirby,

2. phaoptera, Kirby, <J ? . 4-4i lines. (Plate XT.

fig. 3 <? ? .)

3. octomaculata, Smith, <$ ? . 3 lines.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

The name of this genus may be derived from crreTu?,
a sort of parasitical plant, perhaps mistletoe, if we could
be sure that Panzer imposed it after being aware of the
parasitical nature of these bees. It is true his book (the
'Revision') was published in 1805, and Kirby, who
first intimated a suspicion of such cuckoo-like habits in
some of the bees, published his in 1802; therefore it
might have been given in allusion to that peculiarity of

264 BRITISH BEES.

their economy, but it may also be from 0-777X19, a little
column, in application to their cylindrical form. In
but few of the parasitical bees do we know the precise
nature of their transformations, I have therefore been
obliged to be silent upon this point of their natural
history, and I have nothing to state of its nature in
these, although I expect there is much uniformity with
but slight modifications in all. The species of this genus
are parasitical upon the Osmice ; thus the S. phceoptera
is found to infest the 0. fulviventris, and the S. octo-
maculata intrudes itself into the nests of 0. leucomelana,
both of which occur tolerably abundantly near Bristol.
I have no doubt that the south-west and west of England,
if Avell searched, would yield many choice insects.

It is singular that bee parasitism does not prevail
throughout all the genera of bees, some being subject to
it and others not. Thus the genera Colletes, Andrena,
Halictus, Panurgus, Eucera, Anthopkora, Saropoda,
Mcgachile, Osmia, and Bombus have all parasites,
whereas the genera Cilissa, Macropis, Dasypoda, Cera-
tina, Anthidium, Chelostoma, Heriades, Anthocopa, and
Apis have none, as far as we yet know ; and some of the
genera of parasites frequent two or more genera indif-
ferently, whilst others are restricted to a single one ;
also some of the species of the parasitical genera infest
indifferently several of the species of the genus to which
their parasitism is mainly limited ; other species have
a more circumscribed range and do not visit the nests of
more than a single species. What law may control all
these seeming anomalies we cannot discover, — it may
possibly be scent that guides them, and this may con-
trol their parasitism by indicating the species they are
taught by their instinct to be most suitable from the

CCELIOXYS. 265

quality of the pollen with -which it supplies its own nest,
to be that which is best adapted for the nurture of their
young. It is not likely that we shall very speedily lift
the veil from these mysteries, but they are suggestive of
observation which in seeking one thing may fall upon
another equally interesting.

I have usually caught these insects settled upon the
leaves of shrubs, especially of fruit bushes, particularly
that of the black currant, upon which, in a favourable lo-
cality, many bees, as well as numerous small fossorial
Hymenoptera may be found in genial weather. I have
never caught them upon flowers, nor do I know what
flowers they frequent. The end of May, if warm, and
throughout June, they are usually found most abun-
dantly.

Genus 18. CCELIOXYS, Latreille.

(Plate XII. fig. 1 c? ? .)
APIS ** c 1 a, J£irby.

Gen. Char. : BODY subglabrous. HEAD transverse,
concave posteriorly to fit the anterior portion of the
thorax ; ocelli in a triangle on the vertex ; antenna fili-
form, short, subgeniculated, the basal joint of the flagel-
lum globose, the second subclavate, and all from the
second subequal, the terminal joint compressed late-
rally ; face flat, very pubescent ; chjpeus ovate, concavely
truncated in front, its surface convex ; labrum oblong,
with its sides parallel, but with lateral processes at its
articulation ; mandibles broad, quadridentate ; cibarial
apparatus long, the tongue very long, nearly three times
the length of the labium, linear but slightly inflated in
the centre, and thence tapering to its extremity, and

266

BRITISH BEES.

slightly covered with a very short down ; paraglossas
wholly wanting; labial palpi membranous, the two first
joints long, the second slightly the longest, and both
tapering to the extremity of the second, which is acute,
and has the third joint, which is very short and sub-
clavate, articulated before the extremity, with the ter-
minal one of equal length, and rounded at the apex,
appended to it; labium about one-third the length of
the tongue, its inosculation trifid and equal, and the
central division acute; maxillce subhastate and acumi-
nate, not quite so long as the tongue ; maxillary palpi
very short, three-jointed, the basal joint the smallest,
the second the most robust, and the terminal one ovate.
THORAX subglobose; prothora^t, inconspicuous ; mesotho-
rax convex ; wing-scales large ; scutellum produced hori-
zontally, and impending over the post-scutellum and
metathorax, and having at each lateral extremity an
acute, slightly-curved tooth projecting backwards; ms-
tathorax abruptly truncated ; wings with two subrnar-
ginal cells and a third commenced, the first slightly the
longest, the second receiving both the recurrent uer-
vures, the first near its commencement, and the second
close to its termination ; legs slender, spinulose exter-
nally on the tibise ; claws rather long, slender, and simple.
ABDOMEN very conical, truncated atthe base, its segments
slightly constricted, the apical one long, superficially ca-
rinated longitudinally in the centre, and much deflexed.
The MALE scarcely differs, excepting that the whole
of the front of the head is more densely pubescent ; the
mandibles are deeply, acutely, and nearly equally tri-
dentate, the terminal segment of the abdomen is va-
riously mucrouated or toothed at its apex, these pro-
cesses pointing backwards, and the penultimate segment
is more or less produced laterally.

C(ELIOXYS. 267

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. conica, Linnaeus, <$ ? . 4-5 lines.
quadridentata, Linnaeus, $ .
quadridentata, Kirby, $ .

2. simplex, Nyland, $ ? . 5 lines.
conica, Kirby.

conica, Curtis, viii. 349.
Sponsa, Smith, <$ .

3. umbrina, Smith, $ ? .

4. ntfescens, St. Fargeau, r" . 4-6 lines.

5. vectis, Curtis, <$ ? . 5-6 lilies. (Plate XII. fig.

!<??-)

6. inermis, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

This genus is named from tcoiXia, belly, ot;v<t, acute,
in application to the conical abdomen of the female.
The insects of this genus are parasitical upon the genera
Megachile and Saropoda. Thus, C. simplex infests M.
circumcincta ; C. rufescens, M. Willuyhbiella ; C. vectis,
M. maritima ; and C. umbrina is parasitical on Saropoda
bi/naculata. Linnseus, from the different appearance of
the two sexes made two species of them, and from the cir-
cumstance of his having described first the male as Apis
quadridentata, this, by the law of priority, supersedes the
name of C. conica as the name of the species, which is it?
female, and which he next described, and thus that sex,
whose form Latreille adopted as typical of the genus, is in
the series of species totally superseded and reduced to a
synonym. The species of this genus are extremely dif-
ficult to separate from each other, no tangible character
presenting itself conspicuously, although the Swedish

268 BRITISH BEES.

entomologist Nylander supposes he has found one in the
plates of the apical segment of the abdomen, especially
those of the venter, in which he detects Tooth a differ-
ence of form and a difference of relative length to that
of the superior plates, and in the males he assumes that
the teeth of the apical segment are constant characters.
Not having had sufficient opportunity since this sup-
posed discovery was made, for the examination of a
great multitude of specimens, for it is only upon such
an investigation that it can be firmly based, I cannot
speak corroboratively upon the point, but it is very pos-
sibly a correct solution of the difficulty.

The peculiarity of these spines at the apical segments
of the abdomen of the males is remarkable, they being
straight projecting processes, or they have even a slight
upward bearing. In the males of Anthidium and Osmia
we observe spines also arming the apex of the last seg-
ment, but in these we can trace an evident use, both
from the downward curvature of the abdomen itself, and
that same tendency also in the spines. But in the in-
sects of this genus they have not the same conspicuously
apparent object, the abdomen itself even having an up-
ward curvature, or rather a greater facility for turning
upwards than downwards. These insects appear to be
most abundant in the midland and southern counties,
and, according to Curtis, they are numerously found at
the back of the Isle of Wight. I have usually taken
them on the wing and never on a flower, and I do not
know the plants which they may prefer.

MEGACHILE. 269

Subsection 3. DASYGASTERS (convey pollen on the belly).
All with two sulmarginal cells to the wings.

Genus 19. MEG-ACHILE, Latreille. (Leaf-cutters.)

APIS ** c 2 a, Kirby.
(Plate XII. fig. 2 and 3 $ ? .)

Gen. Char. : HEAD as \vide as the thorax, flat and
broad on the vertex, where, on the anterior edge, the
ocelli are disposed in a triangle ; antenna shortish, fili-
form, geniculated ; scape about as long as two first joints
of flagellum, which increases both in length of joints and
their substance from base to apex, the terminal one
being the longest, and longitudinally compressed; face
and clypeus very pubescent, concealing their divisions ;
clypeus transversely lunulate, scarcely convex ; labrum
longitudinally slightly convex and oblong, with the sides
parallel ; mandibles broad, widening outwardly, irregu-
larly quadridental, the two inner teeth obtuse ; cibarial
apparatus moderately long; tongue more than twice the
length of the labium, tapering from the base to the apex,
where it terminates in a minute knob ; paraglossce very
short, scarcely one-sixth the length of the tongue, co-
adunate at the base and acuminate at the apex, where,
in repose, they lap round the base of the tongue ; labial
palpi three-fourths the length of the tongue, the two
basal joints long, subequal, membranous, linear, slightly
tapering to the acute apex of the second, where the third
subclavate joint articulates just before its termination,
and conterminous with which is the fourth, shorter than
the third, but also subclavate ; labium not quite half the
length of the tongue, with a long subobtuse process in
the centre of its inosculation ; maxilhe subhastate, and

270 BRITISH BEES.

very acuminate, nearly as long as the tongue ; maxillary
palpi very short, two-jointed, the basal joint the shortest,
and the terminal one obtuse at its apex, where it is
furnished with brief setae. THORAX subglobose, pubescent,
the pubescence almost concealing its divisions; pro-
thorax inconspicuous; meso thorax convex, subglabrous
on the disk ; scuteHum lunulate, convex ; metathorax
truncated ; wings with two submarginal cells, the com-
mencement of a third slightly indicated, the two com-
plete ones nearly equal, the second of which receives
both the recurrent nervures, one towards each extremity ;
leys robust, very setose; the posterior tibia slightly
curved longitudinally, concavo-convex, broad at the ex-
tremity ; all the plants as long as their tibiae and as
broad at the base but decreasing at the apex to the
width of the following tarsal joints, the anterior pair
fimbriated externally, and the posterior pair clothed, on
the inner surface, with a dense, short brush, the three
following joints short, subequal, the claw-joint as long
as the three, and the claws with a broad basal inner
tooth. ABDOMEN ovate, with parallel sides, convex
above, truncated and concave at its base to fit the meta-
thorax, distended horizontally in length, or with an up-
ward curve, the four first segments slightly constricted,
and their edges usually clothed with decumbent down ;
the terminal segment obtusely pointed and slightly de-
pressed transversely towards its extremity ; the ventral
segments commencing with the second, clothed with
parallel layers of moderately long, straight setae, which
in each parallel are of equal length, but those on the
fifth segment are the shortest, upon all of which the in-
sect conveys the pollen it collects.

The FEMALES of the second division of the genus
scarcely differ.

MEGACHILE. 271

The MALES of the first division differ in having ths
head slightly larger and squarer above; the antennae
very slightly longer; the mandibles more acutely tri-
dentate, with a distinct powerful basal tooth beneath,
terminating the concavity of the organ ; the anterior
femora, tibia, and joints of their tarsi, excepting the ter-
minal one, concavo-convex, the four first joints of the
latter distended laterally, and edged with a dense fringe of
setse, the distension of these joints is widest at their arti-
culation with the tibise and they decline in length to the
claw joint which is long; the claws bifid; the interior
claw acute, but remote from the apical one ; the posterior
femora are very robust, their tibiae much curved, robust,
almost triangular, and externally very convex; their
plants almost glabrous, not so long as the three follow-
ing joints, externally rather twisted, and beneath fur-
nished with a dense brush of long stiff hair.

In the second division of the genus the males are des-
titute of the distension of the anterior t#rsi, these being
instead densely fimbriated externally ; the legs in them
are much less robust, and more closely resemble those of
their females.

NATIVE SPECIES.

§ Anterior tarsi of males mucli dilated.

1. Willuyhbiella, Kirby, $ ? . 5-7 lines.

2. maritima, Kirby, $ ? . 6-7 lines. (Plate XII.

fig.2<? ?.)

3. circumcincta, Kirby, $ ? . 4^-5 \ lines.

§§ Anterior tarsi of males not dilated.

1. ligniseca, Kirby, $ ? . 5-7 lines.

2. centuncularis, Linnseus, <J ? . 4-6 lines.
centuncularis, Kirby.

272 BRITISH BEES.

3. argentata, Fabricius, <$ ? . 3-44 lines. (Plate
Leachella, Kirby. [XII. fig. 3 <J ? .)
Leachella, Curtis.

4. odontura, Smith, <$ . 4^ lines.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Named from the great development of the labrum,
fjueya large, ^eiA.09 Up, which is characteristic of all the
Dasygasters, and also of some of the proximate Nudi-
pedes, those parasitical upon them, Stelis and Ccelioxys,
and which, too, resemble the sitos in the expansion and
dentated formation of their mandibles, although they do
not use them for the same purposes ; this again exhibits
an analogy of structure, that appears in the parasite to
be merely corroborative of identity of existence.

These are more essentiallvsummer insects than the ma-

m

jority of the preceding genera, although some of them pre-
sent themselves with genial spring weather. The genus
may be separated into two distinct divisions by the pe-
culiar dilatation of the tarsi of the males of some of the
species, but such division is not indicative of a differ-
ence of habits, as is distinctly the case in the genus An-
thophora,su\d. in which these combined circumstances Mr.
Kirby suggested as acceptable for generic division, or, as
he called it, the institution of another family. But in
these we find in both divisions both wood-borers and
earth-tunnelers, and some species are indifferently either
as suits their accidental convenience. The general ap-
pearance of the insects is more that of ordinary bees,
and the sexes are more approximate in their habit than
is usually the case.

With this genus commences essentially those desig-
nated as artisan bees, although Colktes might very

MEGACHILE. 273

suitably come under that denomination. The species
themselves of the genus are called leaf-cutters, from the
habit they have of cutting pieces from the leaves of
various shrubs and trees, for the purpose of lining their
nests. The description of the operations of one species
will apply precisely to that carried on by all, the occa-
sional difference between them being the selection of the
leaves of distinct plants ; and it will exhibit the patient
industry and perseverance with which these little uphol-
sterers carry on their labours.

Thus M. centuncularis, the type of the genus, burrows
in decaying wood or in brick walls, and sometimes also in
the ground, and makes use of the cuttings of rose leaves,
—not the petals, — and the leaves of the annual and peren-
nial Mercury (Mer curtails annna and M.perennis). The
M. ligniseca bores into sound Oak and the Mountain Ash,
as well as into putrescent Elm, and uses Elm leaves to
line its nests, sometimes called centunculi from their
being as it were patched together. This is the largest
of all our species, and is found very abundantly every-
where around London frequenting the flowers of the
Thistle. The M. argentata, Fab., or Leachella of Kirby, is
perhaps the prettiest of all the species, and forms its
tunnels in sandbanks. I do not know what leaves this
species selects, which used to be extremely rare, indeed
for a long time only known by the specimen in the British
Museum, until that ardent entomologist the Eev. F. W.
Hope, to whom the University of Oxford owes its superb
entomological collection, brought it in abundance from
Southend, where, during his brief annual stay at his
residence there, he used to find it in the grove which
runs under the cliff edging the terrace of the village ;
it is extremely local, as that and Weybridge, in Surrey,

T

274 BRITISH BEES.

are the only two spots where I have known it to be found.
It is one of the most vivid fliers among the bees, and
darts about, especially during brilliant sunshine in June,
with the velocity of a sand-martin, and its note is shrill,
but harmonious ; it is not often caught upon flowers,
being so extremely alert, but has been seen to visit the
common Viper's Bugloss (Echium vulgare) . TheM.odon-
tura, the last of the second division, which is known only
in a single male specimen in the cabinets of the British
Museum, is one of Dr. Leach's west country captures, of
which nothing precise is known, and it is only noticed
here on account of the singular peculiarity of the arma-
ture of the apex of its abdomen, which brings it closer
to the genus Osmia in that particular, although the ma-
jority of the males of the genus have the terminal seg-
ment slightly furcated.

In these observations I have commenced with the
division which contains the type, and to which the pre-
sent name of the genus would attach from that circum-
stance, were it ever thought desirable to separate those
species, which have dilated anterior tarsi in the males,
into a distinct genus, but which I could scarcely recom-
mend. In the arrangement of the species in the pre-
ceding list, I have placed these latter first, from their
more symmetrical appearance in the cabinet, by leading
down to the terminal smaller species in due order, from
these larger and more conspicuous ones.

The M. Willughbiella and maritima prefer decaying
wood, and they have been found upon decaying Willows
in the Midland Counties in extreme abundance ; they
might be called gregarious were the material within
which they burrow connected in a continuous plane.
The M. Willughbiella makes use of the leaves of the

MEGACHILE. 275

Rose and of the Laburnum, but the M. maritima seems
to prefer the leaves of the Sallow. The M. circumcincta
invariably burrows in banks, confirming the semi-grega-
rious habits of the genus,, where it forms large colonies,
and it is only by accident that it constructs secluded and
solitary nests ; it also makes use of rose leaves for lining
its apartments. The insects are subject to the molesta-
tion of bee-parasites of the genus Coelioxys, the C. qua-
dridentata having been bred from the cells of this latter
species, — that parasite also frequenting the M. Willugh-
biella, and the C. vectis is well known to infest the M.
maritima. Thus, it appears to be only the species of this
division with the dilated tarsi that are exposed to such
incursions, there being no record of parasites frequenting
the division in which the males have simple anterior tarsi.
Besides this bee-parasite, they are also subject to the
attacks of some dipterous insect, whose larvae destroy the
larvae of the Meyachile. Much difficulty exists in separa-
ting the females of some of the species from each other ;
in others the specific character is sufficiently noticeable.
It is a singular concomitant that those males with the
dilated anterior tarsi have the apical joint of the flagel-
lura. of the antennae considerably compressed and also
dilated laterally.

The proceedings of these bees are very curious. Al-
though the tubes they usually form are long, they are so
constructed as not to branch far awav from the exterior of

«r

the material into which they bore, — sound or putrescent
wood or earth, or old mortar joining the bricks of walls, —
if in the second material, they usually follow the pu-
trescent vein, and their tunnel in every case is rarely
further than an inch or an inch and a half from the ex-
ternal surface. Both the sides of the tube, and the cells

T 2

276 BRITISH BEES.

they form within them, will necessarily vary in diameter
and length with the size of the species, but in the larger
species they are about an inch and a quarter long and half
an inch in diameter. Some entomologists have surmised
that different species use the leaves of different plants for
lining their cells ; this, however, is not strictly the case, as
shown in the preceding remarks ; but, although not so,
the series of nests in the same tube are always lined with
cuttings from the same plant ; perhaps a varying caprice
operates upon each day's labours and changes the plant,
influenced by the drift of the wind or some casual freak.
The cylindrical tube being prepared, which is done
very similarly to the way in which it is practised by
all the labouring genera, by the gradual removal of the
particles of the wood, or sand, or earth of which it con-
sists, the insect's instinct prompts it to fly forth to ob-
tain the requisite lining, that the lateral earth may not
fall in, or the wood taint the store to be accumulated
for the young, for it is before this is done that the
upholstery is commenced. Having fixed upon the pre-
ferred plant, Rose-bush or Laburnum or Sallow, or
whatever it may be, it alights upon the leaf, and fixing
itself upon the edge, it holds it with three legs on each
side, then using its mandibles as the cutter of silhouettes
would his scissors, and, just as rapidly as he cuts out a
profile, does this ingenious little creature ply the tools it
is furnished with by nature. The oval or semicircular
cutting being thus speedily dispatched, with the legs still
clinging to the surfaces, the insect biting its way back-
Avards, the piece cut off necessarily remains within the
clutch of the legs, and, when about falling, the rejoicing
labourer expands her wings and flies oft' with it with a
hum of delightful triumph, the cutting being carried

MEGACHILE. 277

perpendicularly to her body. In a direct line slie wings
her way to the receptacle, and arrived at the month of
the aperture within which she has to convey it, she rolls
it to its requisite tubular form and thrusts it forward to
the bottom of the cavity. The first piece for the lining
of each cell is always oval and larger in proportion than
the succeeding ones, which, to the number of three or
four, are semicircular, the first piece having an extra
use to serve in forming a concave bottom to the cavity.
Having completed the requisite manipulation, for ad-
justing it to shape the external lining of the bottom and
sides of the first cell, she withdraws backwards, again
flies off, and, as if she had traced a trail in the air, or
had marked its limpidity with a frothy surge, like
that left in the wake of a ship, to note the road for
her return, back she wends to the same plant, and proxi-
mately to the spot of her recent triumphant exploit re-
news the operation, but the result of which, this time, is
to be semicircular. Home she flies again, and the ar-
rangement within of this piece is different to that of the
first, for this is simply tubular, and so placed that it
imbricates with its cut margin within the serrated edge
of the first and the third, and in case of a fourth the
fourth also is similarly placed, so that one laps within the
other, the edges of two of these cuttings never being
conterminous. The number of the coatings is apparently
regulated by the drier or moister condition of the sub-
stance in which the tunnel is drilled. Another duty has
now to be performed, indeed, that for which all the pre-
ceding labours were undertaken, — the provision for its
young, wherein it perpetuates its kind, — and thus on
and on flows the wonderful stream of life, whose origin
who shall estimate through the millennia it has hitherto

278 BRITISH BEES.

so placidly and uniformly traversed, and whose termi-
nation who shall predict ? Having completed the re-
quisite store of honey mixed with pollen, this is carried
to the brush with which the under side of the abdomen
is furnished, by means of the posterior legs. The honey
and pollen are gathered from different kinds of thistles,
whence it acquires a reddish hue and looks almost like
conserve of roses, and the nest is filled with it to within a
line of its top ; the egg is then deposited, but the coating
of leaves, which enclose the cell completely, secures the
store from lateral absorption, although the mixture is
rather more fluid, consisting of a relatively greater quan-
tity of honey than is usual, excepting perhaps in the case
of Ceratina, and although no viscous secretion is used
to bind the leaves together, which retain their position
from merely lateral pressure. The cell has now to be
closed, and the artificer knowing that the transverse
section of the cylinder is circular, again flies forth, and
without compass, but with all the accuracy with which
Leonardo da Vinci struck a circle writh his pencil, to
testify his mastery, cuts the leaf again in that form,
and as surely : and, three or four, or five or six times, re-
peats this operation, returning each time with each piece,
so many having been variously observed. The separa-
tion between the cells being thus consolidated, it is
further thickened by the lateral, spare, protruding edge
of the leaf first introduced lapping over it. The whole
process is again renewed in the same manner as at first,
the bottom edge of the cutting of the external leaf is
again curved to form a concave bottom to the next cell,
and the sides are similarly formed, and each cell fits
the preceding like the top of one thimble placed in
the mouth of another. The repetition of all this is

ANTHIDIUM. 279

continued until the completion of the five or six cells
necessary to fill the tube, when another is formed with
the same routine, if her store of eggs is not exhausted ;
and the orifice of the tube, upon the completion of the
last cell, wljich is closed in the usual way, is filled up
with earth. Should any casualty interfere with her la-
bours or temporarily derange their utility, without the
obstruction being one that would permanently affect it,
the remarkable patience and rapidity with which the
repairs are effected, or the obstructions removed, is
worthy of all admiration, — the crTopyr], or love of off-
spring, being the predominant passion which overthrows
and controls every difficulty.

When full fed, the larva spins a thick cocoon of silk,
which is attached to the sides of the cell; the outer
coating of this cocoon is of a coarser and browner silk
than the interior, which is formed of very delicate threads
of a slaty-whitish colour and of a close texture, and
which is as lustrous as satin. The exact period of their
evolution from this state is not recorded, but it is pro-
bable that they pass the winter enveloped in their cocoon
as pupse, and in their season come forth the following
year.

Genus 20. ANTHIDIUM, Fabricius.

(Plate XIII. fig. 1 c? ? .)

APIS ** c 2 3, Kirby.

Gen. Char. : BODY subglabrous. HEAD transverse, as
wide as the thorax ; ocelli in a triangle on the vertex,
which is flat; antenna* shortish, slender, filiform, sub-
geniculated; the scape stouter than the flagellum, sub-

280

BRITISH BEES.

clavate, first joint of flagellum globose, the remainder sub-
equal ; face flat ; clypeus triangular, truncated at its base,
slightly rounded in front and convex ; labrum longitu-
dinally oblong, the sides parallel and concavo-convex ;
mandibles dilated at the apex, where they are quinque-
dentate; the alternate teeth smallest ; cibarial apparatus
long ; tongue very long, tapering to its extremity ; para-
gloss^ very short, one-sixth the length of the tongue,
coadunate at the base and subhastate ; labial palpi more
than half the length of the tongue, the two first joints
very long, the second the longest, and both tapering to
the acute extremity of this, where, just before its apex,
the third very short subclavate joint articulates with
the still shorter terminal joint conterminous with it ;
labium one-third the length of the tongue, its inoscula-
tion with an acute projection in the centre ; maxillae as
long as the tongue, subhastate and acuminate; maxil-
lary palpi springing from a deep sinus at its base, very
short, two-jointed, the basal joint the shortest, and the
second obtuse one terminating with a few rigid setee
THORAX subglobose ; prothorax inconspicuous ; mesa-
thorax slightly convex, wing-scales large ; scutellum lunu-
late, projecting and impending over the metathorax, which
is truncated; wings with two submarginal cells, and
a third indistinctly commenced, the second slightly the
longest, and receiving the two recurrent nervures one at
each extremity; legs moderate, subsetose, the tibiee
fimbriated along the edges, the anterior spurs slightly
palmated ; the plantas of the four anterior pairs longer
than their tibiss, but those of the posterior not quite so
long, and all densely clothed all round with a brush of
short close hair ; the claws distinctly bifid. ABDOMEN
semicircular, very convex ; the base truncated and hoi-

ANTHIDIUM. 281

lowed to fit the metathorax; the segments slightly con-
stricted, the terminal segment transversely concave, and
its apex terminating in three slight angles ; the venter,
which is flat, is densely clothed from the second segment
with parallel layers of equal, moderately long, shining hair,
the segment being distinctly indicated by these layers.

The MALE differs in being considerably larger; the
mandibles merely tridentate ; the legs longer and more
robust ; the tibice and tarsi more densely fimbriated
externally, and the tarsi relatively much longer ; the
abdomen densely edged laterally with short curled hair,
the terminal segment with three processes, the lateral
ones strong and curved internally, the central one
shorter and straight, and the penultimate segment trans-
versely concave, with a strong tooth on each side curved
externally, and the venter glabrous beneath.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. manicatum, Linnaeus. 5-8 lines. (Plate XIII. fig.

!<??.)

manicatum, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

The generic name in this instance seems to be manu-
factured from the root av6os, a floiver. I cannot trace
anv other derivation as it may not be attributed merely
to the habits of the species in frequenting flowers, for is
not this the prime function of all the bees, wherein they
fulfil a most important office in the economy of nature ?
How easy might it have been to regulate that flowers
should fertilize themselves, as many do without any ex-
traneous intervention, but by this wise and benevolent
ordination a tribe of sensitive creatures is introduced to

282 BRITISH BEES.

be perpetuated by the perpetuation they supply to that
which supports them, and in this circle of reciprocal
good offices lend an additional charm to the genial sea-
sons, by the animation which they give to the face of
nature, in embellishing the plants they visit with their
vivacity and music.

These bees are gay insects, for both sexes are richly
spotted with yellow, and they present the single instance
which occurs amongst our bees of the male being con-
siderably the largest, and so boisterous is he in his
amours that he forcibly conveys his partner to the upper
regions of the air, where she is compelled to yield to his
solicitations. His whole structure is fully adapted to
carry out this violent abduction, as well in 'the length
and power of his limbs as in the prehensile teeth with
which the apex of his abdomen is armed.

We have but one species of the genus, although the
southern parts of the Continent abound in them. The
habits of ours differ very considerably from those of the
preceding genus. First, in the peculiarity just described,
and then in the formation of their nests. They do
not, like the majority of the wild bees, excavate or bore
a cavity for themselves, but take one already formed
by the xylophagous larva of some considerable insect,
such as Cerambyx moschatus, or Cossus ligniperda.
This they line, to the depth suitable to them, with
cottony down which they scrape from the leaves or
stalk of the Woolly Hedge-nettle (Stacliys Germanica),
the Wild Lychnis (Agrostemma) , and other woolly-
leaved plants. In collecting this wool the insect is
very active, scraping it off rapidly with its broad man-
dibles, and as this is doing she gradually rolls it up
into a little ball, making with the vibration of her wings

ANTHIDIUM. 283

a considerable hum all the time she is gathering it, and
when the hall is sufficiently large she flies off with it
to her nidus ; this operation she continues until suffi-
cient is accumulated for her purpose, which consists in
lining the cavity with the material ; she then forms cells
within it in succession, gluing the same material together
to resist the escape of the mixed store of pollen and
honey she intends to fill it with, having in the operation
smoothed the sides of the cell which is closed after the
deposit of the egg, and another similar cell is then pro-
ceeded with, and this is repeated until the selected cavity
is filled, or that she has exhausted her store. Having
completed her labours, she wanders away. Sometimes
the cavity is large and admits of the conjunction of
many of these cells together ; in that case they are all
collectively covered with the same envelope of downy
substance. The larva, having consumed its entire store
of food, spins a cocoon of brown silk wherein it remains
throughout the winter, and with the evolution of spring,
feeling its propulsive energy, it changes into the pupa.
In June and July, but earlier if the weather be contin-
uously warm, the imago comes forth in its maturity, to
live its little life of labour intermingled with pleasure,
and in its pleasing hum to give cheerful notification of
its perfect satisfaction.

Genus 21. CHELOSTOMA, Latreille.
(Plate XIII. fig. 2, <J ? .)
APIS ** c 2 y partly, Kirby.

Gen. Char. : BODY nearly glabrous and coarsely punc-
tured. HEAD subglobose, rather wider than the thorax;

284 BRITISH BEES.

ocelli in a triangle in the centre of the vertex, which is
broad and slightly convex; antennae short, subclavate,
geniculated, the scape nearly one-half the length of the
flagellum and more robust ; the first and second joint of
the flagellnm subclavate, the basal one the longest and
most robust, the remainder short, subequal, and gra-
dually enlarging to the apical one, which is obtuse and
as long as the basal joint ; face flat, slightly convex
between the insertion of the antennae ; cheeks large and
protuberant; clypens concave, projecting, lobated in
front, where it is slightly emarginate in the centre ;
labrum elongate at its articulation, broader than beyond,
and from this expansion immediately and abruptly
contracting, from the inner angles of the contraction
waving to about three-fourths its length, whence it is
produced into an equal truncated oblong; mandibles
bidentate, external tooth acute, inner one obtuse ; ciba-
rial apparatus long; the tongue twice the length of the
labium, narrowest at its base and obtuse at the ex-
tremity, and clothed with short sette; paraglossce very
short, coadunate at the base and acuminate; labial palpi
two-thirds the length of the tongue, with the three first
joints membranous and flat, conterminous and tapering
to their extremity, the first joint about one-half the
length of the second, the third twice the length of the
fourth, which is clavate and articulated within the apex
of the third; maxillae subhastate and acuminate, as long
as the tongue ; maxillary palpi very short, rather stout,
the joints subequal and the terminal one acute. THORAX
oval, convex ; prothorax inconspicuous ; wing-scales
rather large ; scutellum transversely quadrate, convex ;
post-scutellum transverse, linear ; metathorax gradually
declining, with a glabrous triangular space at its base ;

CHELOSTOMA. 285

wings with two subinarginal cells nearly equal and a third
commenced ; the second receives both the recurrent
nervurcs, the first beyond its commencement and the
second before its termination; legs shortish, subsetose, the
anterior spurs short, broad, and emargiuate at the apex ;
the posterior plantce with a compact dense brush within ;
claw-joint long; claws simple. ABDOMEN longer than
head and thorax, snbclavate, convex above, retuse at the
base, and the apical segment obtuse at its extremity, the
venter flat, its segments clothed from the second with
dense parallel brushes of longish hair for the conveyance
of pollen.

The MALE differs in having the headless conspicuously
globose; the cheeks less protuberant; the whole body
more pilose, the anterior spurs robust, short, and abruptly
obliquely truncated ; the antenna slender, filiform, much
longer than in the female, but not much longer than the
head, atid from the fourth to the ninth joints serratulate
within, adapting it to a sharp curve ; the abdomen being
equal, cylindrical, retuse at its base, convex above, and
flat on the venter, where it has a longitudinal deeply
concave mucro in the centre of the second segment,
which concavity runs along all the subsequent segments,
and it is densely pilose on the fourth; the terminal
dorsal segment being deeply emargiuate in the centre
and produced on each side into a broad obtuse pro-
cess; the claws are more robust than in the female and
bideutate ; the posterior pair being subclavate, and their
single tooth abruptly reflected.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. florisomne, Linneeus, $ ? . 3-5 lines. (Plate
XIII. fig. 2 (J ? .)

286 BRITISH BEES.

maxillosa, Linuseus.
maxUlosa, Kirby.
2. campanularum, Kirby, c? ? . 2-2 \ lines.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

These insects are named from %77\^, a forceps, and
aro/jua, a mouth, — in allusion to the forcipate form of
the mandibles, which are strong, and cross each other in
inaction.

They and the next genus are styled carpenter bees,
but they are not more consistently thus called than
might be Anthophora furcata and the genus Cera-
tina ; they, in fact, like the latter, just as .often avail
themselves of an empty straw to form their cells in, or
the cylinder that has been drilled by some xylophagous
beetle of their own size, as they themselves drill into
palings and solid wood for the purpose, but when they
do this, it is facilitated to them by their powerful man-
dibles and their square and strong head. They are cer-
tainly very compactly formed, their structure being in-
dicative of great power, of course relatively to their size.
When they drill their cylinders themselves they are
extremely persevering in its execution, and in the pro-
cess, the material they extract, which is like fine sawdust,
they withdraw from the depth of the cavity by passing
it beneath them, and pushing it out at the orifice by
means of their posterior legs and the apex of the abdo-
men, for they are too long to be able to turn within the
cavity they have formed, its capacity not being sufficient
to permit this, as it is very little larger in diameter than
themselves. I have repeatedly watched them in these
operations.

Having found or drilled a suitable cylindrical tube, they

CHELOSTOMA. 287

do nothing further to it but collect a sufficient store of
provender for the nutriment of the young one, upon
which they deposit the egg which is to produce it. The
insect then flies away to collect a small quantity of clay
intermingled with sand, and this they knead together
by means of a viscous secretion which they disgorge,
and this forms a concrete that hardens firmly and
rapidly; to anticipate its rapid drying they speedily fly
back, carrying this small ball within their mandibles,
and with it they cover over the provision they have col-
lected, and which, adhering to the sides of the cavity,
forms a firm and hard division, effectually separating it
from the next store of provision that is to be accumulated
for the supply of the larva that will be hatched from the
egg that is to be deposited, and the same process is
repeated again and again until all the eggs are laid. In
their development, which takes place near midsummer,
the males precede the females by about ten days. They
associate sometimes in colonies, often using the tubes of
the straw thatch which covers cottages for their nidus.

These bees are subject to the parasitical intrusion of
Fcenus jaculator and assectator, which I have repeatedly
caught at Battersea, hovering opposite the cells of these
insects bored in the shingles forming the enclosure of
an old garden outhouse. These parasites are themselves
peculiar creatures, forming a type distinct from the
Ichneumons, and belonging to the group Aulacus, upon
which see my paper in the ' Entomologist/ June, 1841.
In these insects, the abdomen springs from immediately
beneath the scutellum. Chrysis cyanea and iynita are also
bred at the expense of these bees, neither of the species of
which are uncommon ; the smaller one, the C. campanu-
larum, which is the smallest of our true bees, excepting

288 BRITISH BEES.

perhaps one or two of the Nomadae, I used to find in
abundance iipon the railings of the fields that skirt
Harapstead Heath, on the right-hand going from Lon-
don, parallel with the Vale of Health, and thence rising
to the Holly enclosure of the Earl of Mansfield's man-
sion. This spot has been productive to me of many
very choice aculeate Hymenoptera, and supplied me
with them in abundance at a time when even the chief
metropolitan collections were bare of them. It has also
furnished me with several very desirable Diptera of ex-
tremely rare genera. The male of the larger species of
this genus Linnseus called florisomne, from its habit
of curling up its abdomen and antennse, and passing the
night in flowers. Those which they chiefly frequent
are the species of Wallflower, and the Campanula, espe-
ciallv the round-leaved Throatwort.

Genus 22. HERIADES, Spinola.

(Plate XIII. fig. 3 cJ ? .)

APIS ** c 2 y partly, Kirby.

Gen. Char. : BODY glabrous and much punctured.
HEAD globose and curving to the thorax posteriorly;
ocelli in a triangle far forward on the vertex ; antennce
slightly subclavate, the scape not half so long as the
flagellum, the first joint of which is robust, subclavate,
and twice the length of the second, which, with the rest,
are subequal, very slightly lengthening to the terminal
one, which is as long as the basal one and laterally com-
pressed ; face slightly convex, cheeks large and convex ;
clypeus lunulate, convex, and with two minute central
teeth on its front margin ; labrum longitudinally oblong,

HERIADES. 289

rather broadest at the base and slightly waved late-
rally, concavo-convex and subemarginate at the apex ;
mandibles subequ'al, tridentate at the apex, and the cen-
tral tooth obtuse ; cibariul apparatus moderately long,
tonyue twice the length of the labium, with a small
knob at its apex ; paraglossce very short, almost obsolete,
coadunate at the base ; labial palpi two-thirds the length
of the tongue, the two first joints membranous and long,
the first one-third the length of the second, which
tapers to its acute extremity, before the end of which
the two terminal, subclavate, very short, subequal joints
are inserted ; labiam half the length of the tongue,
slightly produced in the centre of its inosculation ;
maxilla subhastate, two-thirds the length of the tongue;
maxillary palpi three-jointed, short, robust, equal, and
collectively subfusiform, the terminal one rather acute.
THORAX globose; prothorax inconspicuous; scutellum
lunulate ; post-scutellum linear, transverse ; metathorax
declining; wings with two submarginal cells, and the
commencement of a third indicated, the second larger
than the first, subtriangular, and receiving both the
recurrent nervures, one at each of its extremities ; leys
short, rather robust, subsetose and spiuulose ; posterior
tibiffi convex externally and with their plantse rugose,
the latter covered beneath with a dense brush of short
hair; claws simple. ABDOMEN cylindrical, convex above,
retuse at the base, and the first and second segments
slightly constricted at their extremity, obtuse, and from
the end of the third segment sensibly declining to the
apex ; plane on the venter, where, from the second seg-
ment, the plate of each, excepting the glabrous terminal
one, is covered w ith a dense brush of short hair for the
conveyance of pollen.

u

290 BRITISH BEES.

The MALE differs in the antennas being rather longer,
more distinctly filiform, the seventh segment of the
abdomen concealed under the extremity of the sixth, and
the venter from the third segment longitudinally deeply
concave, the plate of the third itself covered with hair ; the
claws more robust and each equally bifid, not bidentate.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. truncorum, Linnaeus, $ ? . 3-3 \ lines. (Plate

XIII. fig. 3 <? ? .)
truncorum, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

The names of insects are not always very aptly given,
for the only available derivation of this appears to be
from epiov, wool ; in allusion to the clothing of its
venter ; but, if so, it should be spelt without the H, for
•the first letter is without an aspiration. The habits of
these closely resemble those of the preceding genus, to
which they have a great personal likeness, and therefore
their natural history would be but its reiteration. Our
solitary species is a rare insect, but I expect western
England would produce it. It is like those of the pre-
ceding genus, of a uniform black colour, punctured,
but it approximates more closely than they do to the type
of form exhibited in the genus Osmia. They visit the
same flowers as the preceding genus.

Genus 23. ANTHOCOPA, St. Fargeau.
(Plate XIV. fig. 2 c? ? .)

Gen. Char. : BODY glabrous, subpubescent, shining.
HEAD subglobose, as wide as the thorax ; ocelli placed
in a slight curve on the summit of the vertex ; antennae

ANTHOCOPA. 291

short, geniculated, foeflagellum subclavate seen in front,
but seen from above, owing to tlie compression of the
terminal joint, subfusiform, the first joint of the flagel-
lum globose, rather robust, the second short, subclavate
and subequal with the rest, which increase gradually in
length and substance to the terminal one, which is the
longest, and laterally compressed ; face fiattish ; clypeus
subquadrate, very convex and very pubescent ; " labrum
oblong, quadrate ; mandibles strong, tridentate ; labium
(tongue) long, filiform; labial palpi having the third joint
articulated externally on the outer side of the second ;
maxillary palpi four-jointed." THORAX globose ; scu-
tellum lunate; post-scutellum transverse, linear; meta-
thorax rounded ; loinys with two submarginal cells and
the commencement of a third just indicated, the second
very slightly larger than the first, and receiving both the
recurrent nervures, the first just beyond its commence-
ment and the second close to its termination ; legs short,
rather robust, subsetose ; the posterior tibiae externally
convex and the posterior plant® with a dense, short
brush beneath ; the claws simple. ABDOMEN cylin-
drical, retuse at the base, convex above, declining from
the base of the fourth segment to the extremity, the
first and second segments very slightly constricted,
the margin of the posterior one, at the apex, slightly
crenulated, the ventral segments plane and from the
second covered with a dense brush of parallel hair, ex-
cepting the sixth, which is reflected laterally and longi-
tudinally, convex down the centre.

The MALE differs in having " the sixth segment of the
abdomen emarginate, and with a strong tooth on each
side; the terminal segment emarginate, thus producing
two strong, lateral, obtuse teeth, the ventral plates of

u 2

29.2 BRITISH BEES.

•

these same segments emarginate at the extremity, and
the emargination fringed with hair; the claws bifid."

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. papaveris, Latreille. (Plate XIV. fig. 2 £ ? .)

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Named by St. Fargcau from civdos, a flower, and
Koirr), a cutting or incision, from its habit of cutting sec-
tions out of the petals of the common scarlet poppy with
which to line the cells it forms within the cylinder it
excavates, just as Megachile does with the leaves of
various plants. It is noticed as British upon the faith
of the specimens introduced by Leach into the cabinets
of the British Museum and presumptively caught in the
west or south-west of England, a region rich in rarities.
Rennie in fact tells us that he has found it at Largs, in
Scotland. One of Leach's specimens I received in ex-
change from that establishment in 1842, and which is
now in the possession of Mr. Desvignes, to whom my
collections passed in the following year. This genus
forms a sort of combination between the genera Mega-
chile and Osmia, it having the upholstering habits of the
former in the mode with which it lines its nest, and the
general habit of the latter. At a first glance, before its
habits were known or its structure examined, even an
experienced entomologist might have placed it under Os-
mia, as an unrecognised species, for it very strongly re-
sembles the Osmia leucomdana. This proves how very
inconclusive habit is as an index to habits, the latter of
these insects drilling into the pith of brambles, and the
Anthocopa tunnelling cylinders into the hardest trodden
roads or pathways and lining them with its crimson hang-
ings.

ANTHOCOPA. 293

From the extreme rarity of the insect, I have been
unable to examine the cibarial apparatus, and thence to
ascertain upon what substantial grounds the generic
distinctions are based, which separate it from Osmia.
Whether it was these mere habits of the insect which
induced Le Pelletier de St. Fargeau to establish the
genus I do not know, but he is always extremely slovenly,
and therefore very unsatisfactory in his characteristics,
which are never framed in a strictly , explicit manner.
In consequence of all these difficulties, I have merely
been able under the generic character to introduce such
as he has given, which I could not derive from the per-
sonal external inspection of Mr. Desvignes' female (my
own selection of whose bees for the purposes of this work
he has been so kind as to lend me, and whom I thus
publicly present with my best thanks) . I have there-
fore compounded a character as well as I could from
St. Fargeau's descriptions, inserted iu the tenth volume
of the ( Encyclopedic Methodique,' and from his work on
the Hymenoptera, forming one of the ' Suites a Buffon.'

The habits of these bees, as said above, are to excavate
vertical cylinders in hard down-trodden pathways and
roads, by the sides of fields where corn is grown, and
Avhere consequently the common red poppy is abundant.
From the petals of the flowers of this plant they cut
out semicircular pieces, precisely as is done by Mega-
chile with the more rigid leaves of shrubs and trees,
and convey them home and line their nests with them,
just as is practised by that genus with those leaves.—
with this difference merely, that a sufficient portion ot
the upper edge of the pieces of the petals used is left
projecting, for the purpose of forming a covercle to the
nidus, and which, when filled with provender and the

291 BRITISH BEES.

egg deposited, is refolded over it and covered in, and it
is closed up with earth. They then proceed to make
another excavation, which is treated in the same man-
ner, for they deposit only one larva in a tube. If dis-
turbed in their retreat, they will show themselves at its
mouth, like Dasypoda, to see what is the matter.

I would urge our collecting entomologists, especially
those who have the opportunity of hunting up the west
of England, to use due diligence and strive to confirm
the native existence of this bee and add specimens to the
cabinets of their fellow-entomologists.

Genus 24. OSMIA, Latreille.

(Plate XIV. figs. 1 and 3 $ ? .)

APIS ** c 2 8, Kirby.

Gen. Char. : HEAD subglobose, concave, posteriorly
fitting the prothorax and about as wide as the thorax;
ocelli placed far forward on the vertex, which is wide
and convex, in a curved line; antennas filiform, some-
times subclavate, short, and geniculated, the scape ro-
bust, as long as the four following joints, the basal
joint of the flagellum globose, its second joint clavate
and as long as the terminal one, the remainder short,
subequal, and gradually but slightly increasing in length;
the face flattish; the clypeus a truncated triangle, con-
vex ; labrum longitudinally oblong, a little laterally dis-
tended at the articulation, from whence the sides are
parallel ; mandibles broad at the apex, obscurely trideii-
tate, the internal teeth obtuse and short ; cibarial ap-
paratus long ; the tongue three times the length of the
labium, clothed with short hair and tapering from the

OSMIA. 295

base to the acute apex ; paraglossa very short, coaclunate
at the base and acuminate at the apex; labial palpi more
than half the length of the tongue, the two first joints
membranous and long, the basal one the broadest, seated
on a petiole and not so long as the second, which tapers
to an acute point, before the apex of which the remain-
ing two short subclavate conterminous joints articulate;
lab'mm about one-third the length of the tongue, acutely
produced in the centre of its inosculation ; maxillae as
long as the tongue, subhastate and acuminate; maxil-
lary palpi four-jointed, rather short, the joints subequal
and subclavate, but the second is both the most robust
and slightly the longest. THORAX oval or glolwse ; pro-
iltorax inconspicuous ; scutellum lunulate and convex ;
post-scutdlum transverse and linear ; the metathorax ab-
ruptly truncated; wings with two submarginal cells, and a
third distinctly commenced, the second the longest, and
receiving both the recurrent nervures, the first towards
its centre and the second near its termination; legs
moderate, setose, the plantse of all with a dense brush
beneath ; claw-joint longer than the three preceding ;
claws simple. ABDOMEN short, cylindrical, convex, the
terminal segment slightly pointed, the ventral segments
densely pilose in parallel lines from the second.

The MALE differs in having the antennae longer and
always filiform, the ventral segments very concave, and
the terminal dorsal segment variously mucronated, tu-
berculated, spinose or serrated, and the claws bifid.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. leucomelana, Kirby, $ ? . 3-4| lines. (Plate

XIV. fig. 3 <J ? .)

2. spinulosa, Kirby, $ ? . 3-4 lines.

296 BRITISH BEES.

3. pilicornis, Bainbridge, MS., <$ ? = 4-4| lines.

4. bicolor, Schrank, <$ $ . 4-5 lines. (Plate XIV.

fig. 1 c? ? •)
S.fulviventris, Panzer, <$ $ . 4-5 lines.

Leaiana, Kirby.

6. aenea, Linnreus, $ ? . 3-4| lines.
caerulescens, Linnaeus, ? .
ccerulescens , Kirby, ? .

7. parietina, Curtis, [V. 222.] c? ? • 3-4 lines.

8. xanthomelana, Kirby, $ ? . 4-7 lines.
atricapilla, Curtis, [V. 222.] ? .

9. aurulenta, Panzer^ $ $ . 4-6 lines.
tunensip, Kirby.

10. rufa, Linnseus, $ $ . 3-6 lines.
bicornis, Linnaeus.
bicornis, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Named from ocr/i?), sweet-scent, from some fancied idea
of their possessing the property of emitting a sweet
odour; but this, although it is the case with many of
the bees, — for instance, with the genera Prosopis, Hulic-
tus, Nomada, some of the Anthophora, Saropoda, and
the male Bombi and Apathi, — I have not noticed in any
of this subsection, the Dasygasters, and therefore not
in any of the present genus. It is possible that when
richly laden with pollen, this may emit some smell,
but I am not aware that any of the scent of flowers
lies in the anthers or their pollen, although this in
some cases has a spermatic odour pointing to its express
function; but be this as it may, such is their name.
These as a group are what are called the ' Mason Bees/
from the habit they have of agglutinating particles of

OSMIA. 297

sand or earth mixed with minute pebbles, scarcely lar-
ger than grains of sand, or raspings of wood combined
in the same manner, with a secretion which they emit,
and of which they form their cells. The instinct of the
creature prompts it to be speedy in the operation, as the
material, like plaster of Paris, dries very rapidly to a
hard substance. Whether they have the power of
softening the edges as the manufacture of the cell pro-
ceeds is not known, nor whether, as they add the
material, it instantaneously consolidates itself, but the
colour of the structures themselves would indicate a
simultaneous mixture. This could not be the case, if
the mortar or mixture were formed away from the domicile
and brought home in little pellets, each being added
upon the insects' arrival, although they obtain it all from
the same spot, whence arises its uniformity in colour,,
and they are speedy in the formation of their nests.
These cells are rather rough externally, according to the
nature of the material of which they are composad, but
they are very smooth within. The nature of the cells
varies with the places of their deposit, which is dependent
upon the idiosyncrasy of the species. Thus, those which
construct their cells in wood, form them of moistened
particles of wood, and those which make them in cavi-
ties of any kind, in the earth, beneath stones, or within
empty snail-shells, make a mortar of earth and sand
and small pebbles. Some are strictly uniform in the
selection of the material wherein they build, but others
are perfectly indifferent to its locality, and adopt either
earth or wood, and sometimes the mortar of walls, sand-
banks or chalk cliffs. According to the nature or the
size of the receptacle which they select, is the adjust-
ment- of these cells. Where the cavity is restricted they

298 BRITISH BEES.

place them end to end, but where it is more roomy they
affix them side to side, completely adapting themselves
to the circumstances of the locality as I shall instance
below, in the description of the special habits of the
more conspicuous species. I have elsewhere referred to
the metallic colouring of many of the species of this
genus, and amongst them is found the greatest sexual
disparity of personal appearance, the 0. leucomelana,
and one or two of the neighbouring species being, per-
haps, the only ones wherein uniformity of appearance
would unite the partners together. The majority are
very pubescent insects, and the females of the terminal
species in the foregoing list are remarkable for a couple
of inwardly curved horns, springing from the base of the
clypeus just below the insertion of the antennae, an ap-
pendage usually a male attribute.

There is very great dissimilarity in the habits of the
various species, whence no single characteristic will em-
brace them, nor is there any distinctive feature whereby
the genus might bear subdivision, either from habits or
habit, as will be collected from the following cursory
survey of their special natural history.

Thus the first species, the 0. leucomelana, named so
from the white decumbent down which edges the black
segments of the abdomen, extracts the pith from bram-
ble-sticks, and its cells are formed and closed with a
composition made of triturated wood or leaves. The
cylinders it forms are usually about five inches deep,
and within this it constructs about the same number of
cells proportionate to the small size of the insect. These
are midsummer insects, coming forth in June and July ;
they are very local, but seem to abound in the vicinity

Bristol; whence Mr. Thwaites formerly sent me speci-

OSMIA. 299

mens. A very few days serve for the hatching of the
larva, which spins a slight silken cocoon, and in this
dormitory it reposes until its season again comes round.
Under the influence of the following first genial spring
weather, the larva is transmuted into the pupa, and the
active little imago comes forth upon the settlement of
our variable spring, in the merry days of June, and thus
is perpetuated the circle of its existence, but which is
sometimes abridged by its special parasite, the pretty
little Stelis octomaculata. Many of the species in the
males are distinguished by a peculiar armature of the
apex of the abdomen ; the second being named by Kirby
from the circumstance. A very remarkable singularity
distinguishes the males of the third species, in the fringe
of short hair that runs along the flagellum of its an-
tennae. This, I believe, was first noticed by the late
Mr. Bainbriclge, a very active practical entomologist,
who took the insect at Darenth or Birchwood, and dis-
tributed specimens with this manuscript name attached,
which has since been appropriated by another entomo-
logist to whom the science was wholly unknown at that
time, but as it is scarcely consistent with scientific
courtesy to adopt such a course, and as the MS. names
of Linnaeus and Kirby have been retained, where it
was authorized by their being attached to undescribed
species, I have restored to Mr. Bainbridge his just
rights, and have claimed the same for myself, in the
case of Andrena lonyipes, and which many cabinets must
still possess with my name attached, in my own writing,
unless their possessors have chosen to adopt the illegiti-
mate parentage ; for the entomologists of my own stand-
ing well know that I always freely distributed speci-
mens to all who desired them of the many very desirable

300 BRITISH BEES.

insects which I have captured in the course of my ento-
mological career. The fourth and the ninth species, the
0. bicolor and 0. aurulenta, have very much the same
habits, both usually burrowing in sandbanks, sometimes
however in wood, in which case the perforation, contrary
to the mode of wood-drilling bees, is made upwards, a
sagacity or instinct which saves it much trouble, for the
particles as they are removed by the mandibles are passed
beneath the insect, and their own gravity carries them
downwards, and thus the insect saves itself the labour of
conveying them out as they accumulate in inconvenient
quantities. The cells in this case are placed end to end.
When they burrow in the earth, the latter species often
associate gregariously in large numbers, and if they select
a cavity, instead of tunnelling it themselves, and it be
too large to take one cell upon the others, they form them
side by side, and thus fill the space. This is the case when
they adopt snail-shells as the receptacle for their incu-
nabula, and this is done by both these species, and the
shells they select are the empty ones of PIdix nemoralis,
hortensis, and adspersa. The capacity of the latter shell
being much greater than that of the others, and too wide
for a single succession, she fills the interval by placing
them side by side, and with the increase of the whorl
of the shell towards its orifice she places them across the
space, and thus completes her task. In the former
shells, the cavity at first admits of the succession of but
one upon the other, but with its enlargement she places
them side by side, and this repeated fills the hollow. Its
aperture is then closed with earth and pebbles or sticks
agglutinated together, as described at the commence-
ment. The 0. fulvivcntris burrows in wood, and upon
this species the Stelis phceoptera is parasitical ; and that

OSMIA. 301

very pretty but extremely common species the 0. aenea,
in which the male is of a rich bronzy tint, and the female
of a beautiful blue, verging sometimes to nearly black,
burrows also in wood, although sometimes it capriciously
selects old walls or chalk-cliffs, and is subject to the
incursions of the same parasite. Perhaps the most
extraordinary species is the O. parielina, figured and
named by Curtis, and which he firsf found at Amble-
side ; it has since been found in the Grampians very con-
siderably above the level of the sea, and it is thus essen-
tially a northern species both from altitude and locality.
It would appear that this species selects some flat stone
of about a foot in surface, lying upon the ground over
a hollow spot. Such a specimen, sent to the British
Museum, had attached to its under side two hundred and
thirty cocoons, indicative of a considerable colony, or
perhaps the accumulation of successive years, as one-
third of these cocoons were empty of tenants. These, in
their new depository, continued developing themselves
in the perfect state between March and June, males ap-
pearing first. When the transformations of the season
ceased, five-and-thirty were still left to present them-
selves another year, and the following spring these were
developed ; thus, including those which had already
escaped when the stone and its treasure was secured,
three successive seasons were occupied in their trans-
mutations. It may be a species that requires three
years for its metamorphosis, and the whole deposit of
cocoons may have been the result of three years' accu-
mulative structure, the vital activity of their northern life
being perhaps more sluggish than in species frequenting
the south. The last species the 0. rufa, that iu which
the female is remarkable for its inverted horns, which

302 BRITISH BEES.

must be for some use in its economy, is perhaps the most
common of all. I have found it in abundance upon old
walls with a sunny aspect at Erith, and throughout the
pleasant Grays of Kent. It is indifferent as to the choice
of its domicile, selecting either walls, where I have chiefly
found them, sandbanks, or the decaying stumps of pol-
lard-willows. Its processes are similar to those of some
of the earlier described, bat its larva is longer in full
feeding, which, when it has consumed all its provender
spins a tough cocoon of brown silk, wherein it under-
goes its changes ; some, depending much upon locality,
pass into pupse in the autumn, others hibernate as larvse
which are subject to destruction from the attacks of the
Chalcideous insect, Monodontomerus dentipes, previously
noticed under Anthophora. Some of the Chrysididce
also infest several of the species of this genus, and I have
no doubt that Stelis aterrima is parasitical upon one of
them, although it has not been recorded. The various
species frequent many flowers, especially those abundant
in the locality they inhabit, but the 0. pilicornis chiefly
affects the common Bugle (Ajuga reptans), and they
much frequent composite flowers, especially the species
of the genus Hieracium.

Section 2. Cenobites (dwellers in community).

Subsection 1. SPUEBED.

f Parasitical.

Genus 25. APATHUS, Newman.

(Plate XV. figs. 1 and 2.)

APIS ** e 2 partly, Kirby. — PSITHYRUS, St. Fargeau.
Gen. Char.: BODY subhirsute. HEAD subglobose;

APATHUS.

303

vertex broad, glabrous, with a deeply impressed cross
upon its summit, in the centre of which the ocelli are
placed in an almost straight line and contiguously ; an-
tenna short, filiform, geniculated, the scape slightly
curved, the basal joint of tlaeflagellum subglobose, its
second joint as long as the terminal one and subclavate,
the rest short, subcqual, but gradually increasing in
length to the terminal one, which is laterally compressed ;
the face flat; clypeus transversely lunate but straight in
front; labrum lunulate, tuberculated laterally; man-
dibles broad and obscurely bidentate ; cibarial apparatus
moderate ; tongue twice the length of the labiurn, taper-
ing from base to apex, where it terminates in a small
knob, and is clothed with short hair; paraglossce obsolete;
labial palpi as long as the tongue, the two first joints
long and membranous and tapering to the apex of the
second, which is acute, and about one-fourth the length
of the first, it has the two very short, subclavate, ter-
minal joints, which are conterminous, and articulated
just before its acute apex; maxilla subhastate and acu-
minate; maxillary palpi very short, linear, and equal.
THORAX globose, pubescent, concealing its divisions;
metathorax truncated ; wings with three submarginal
cells nearly equal, or the third the largest, the second
receiving the first recurrent nervure at about one-third
its length, and the second is received by the third sub-
marginal cell near its extremity ; legs setose ; the pos-
terior tibi(B convex, very slightly enlarging from base to
apex, rounded at the extremity externally, and unfur-
nished with means to convey pollen ; posterior plants
oblong, narrowly equal, and not auriculated ; claws bifid.
ABDOMEN ovate, convex above, deflecting toward its ex-
tremity, and subglabrous on the disk, the terminal

304 BRITISH BEES.

clgrsal segment triangular, and its ventral plate straight
at its apex with the lateral angles reflected, making it
concave beneath and subcarinated longitudinally in the
centre, or also triangular and the sides of the prominent
angle deflected.

The MALE differs in having the antennae slightly
longer, in being rather more pubescent, more highly
and rather differently coloured, and its terminal segment
merely rounded.

NATIVE SPECIES.

3. campestris, Panzer, <^ ? . 6-9 lines. (Plate XV.

fig. 2. The fig. marked $ by mistake for ? .)
campestris, Kirby, ? .
Rossiella, Kirby, (J.
Leeana, Kirby.
Franciscana, Kirby.
subterranea, Kirby.

2. Barbutellus, Kirby, $ ? . 6-9 lines.

3. vestalis, Pourcroy, £ ? . 6-10 lines. (Plate XV.

fig. 2 ? .)
vestalis, Kirby, ? .

4. rupestris, Fabricius, J ?. 6-10 lines. (Plate XV.

fig. 1 c? ? •)
albinella, Kirby, <$ .

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Named from a, privative, 7ra0o?, affection ; that is
to say, without affection, from their habit of leaving
their young to be nurtured by others, in allusion to
their parasitical instincts, for the young of these bees
are brought up in the nests of the Bombi. They form
the only instance in bee-parasitism of the parasite

APATHUS. 305

closely, or nearly so, resembling its sitos, if not al-
ways in colour, certainly in habit. Having no labours
to undergo they consist of merely males and females,
lout the latter, although very like the large female Bombi,
are ranch less pubescent than these, for they have a broad
disk, upon the upper surface of the abdomen, always
smooth and shining. Both sexes appear to have free
in- and egress to the nests of those Bombi which they
infest, without any let or hindrance on the part of the
latter, with whom they seem to dwell in perfect amity.
In the times of their appearance they closely resemble
the Halicti and the neighbouring Bombi. Thus the
females, after impregnation in the autumn, having hi-
bernated during the winter in selected receptacles, come
out with the first gleams of spring conjunctively with the
large maternal Bombi, in whose nests they have taken
their long repose in perfect torpidity ; and as soon as
these begin to accumulate the masses of conglomerated
honey and pollen whereon to deposit their eggs, the
parasite takes advantage of it, lays her eggs too, and
thus secures food for her offspring. There being two
broods of them in the year, many are gradually deve-
loped with the advance of summer, but the great hatch-
ing takes place in the autumn, when the thistles are in
blossom. Then both males and females come forth in
abundance, the latter are made fertile, and their partners
enjoy the brief interval of the still blossoming flowers
until the usual period is put to their existence by natural
decay, the first frosts, or the rapacity of insectivorous
birds. Connected with this last circumstance I have a
personal experience to record, and which its repetition
would indicate as being one of Nature's prompting acts.
A lofty sandy level; very near the high-road which leads

x

306 BRITISH BEES.

at the upper part of Hampstead Heath, to Highgate, from
, which road it was separated by merely a band of whins
and coarse grass, used to be a very favourite collecting
place of mine, for there, and in its immediate vicinity,
I have often caught, within a very brief period, more
than half the genera, and a very large number of the
species of the fossorial Hymenoptera. One particular
little spot was inhabited by Psen equestris, rare every-
where else, and our largest Cerceris, who carried on their
instinctive pursuits during all the summer months, but
at a particular time in the autumn, varying slightly
with the nature of the season, a flock of wagtails (Mota-
cilla] would alight and make brief work of those fossores
which were still aflight ; and this was repeated season
after season, as if the wagtails thought it was time that
their own rapacity should stop the course of these pre-
dacious insects. But to return, the female Apathi then
resort to the nests of the Bombi whence they have issued,
and lay themselves up in their winter dormitory. That
this must take place speedily after impregnation is ren-
dered almost conclusive by the fine state in which their
pubescence appears in the spring, which would be tar-
nished did they loiter about visiting flowers previous to
their return home. But the labours of the female and
neuter Bombi themselves are now over, and they would
therefore find no store whereon to deposit their eggs.
The parasitical allocation of these insects is as follows.
Apathus rupestris infests Bombus lapidafms ; A. vestalis
the B. terrestris, and this forms an instance in which
the parasite is not clothed in the colours of its sitos.
But A. Barbutellus has a wide range, for it frequents
the nests of B. pratorum, B. Derhamellus, and B. Skrim-
shiranus.

BOM BUS. 307

ft Not parasitical. Collectors of pollen.
J Temporarily social.

Genus 26. BOMBUS, Latreille.

(Plate XV. figs. 3 and 4, and Plate XVI. figs. 1, 2, 3.)
APIS **e 2, Kirby.

Gen. Char. : BODY densely hirsute. HEAD small, sub-
globose, not so wide as the thorax ; the vertex glabrous,
with a longitudinal, short, deep channel, crossed in its
centre by a deeper transverse one, wherein the ocelli are
disposed in a very slightly curved line ; antenna short,
geniculated, and filiform ; the scape half as long as the
flagellum, the first joint of which is globose, the se-
cond subclavate, the rest short and subequal, and the
terminal one compressed laterally; face flat, densely
pubescent ; chjpeus subtriangular, gibbous, its base trun-
cated, and apex convexly lobated, or straight and mar-
gined; labrum lunulate; mandibles broad at the base,
and obscurely tridentate ; cibarial apparatus moderate ;
tongue twice the length of the labium, clothed with pu-
bescence to within a brief distance of its apex, and ter-
minating in a small knob; paraglosscK about one-fourth
the length of the tongue, coadunate at the base, and
acuminate ; labial palpi three-fourths the length of the
tongue, broad at the base, and tapering to the extremity
of the acute apex of the second joint, which is about
one-fifth the length of the first, the two terminal joints
very short and articulated laterally just before the
end of the second ; labium one-half the length of the
tongue, broadest at its base, and acutely produced in the
centre of its inosculation ; maxillae as long as the tongue,
subhastate and acuminate; maxillary palpi two-jointed,
short, sometimes equal, and slightly robust, or with the

x 2

308 BRITISH BEES.

basal joint very robust, and its terminal joint twice as
long and linear. THORAX globose, very hirsute, whence
its divisions are inconspicuous ; scuiellum lunate ; meta-
thorax truncated; wings with three submarginal cells sub-
equal^ or the third the longest, and a fourth slightly com-
menced, the second receiving the first recurrent nervure
near its centre, and the third receiving the second re-
current nervure close to its extremity; legs robust,
pilose, the four anterior plantse with a dense, short, se-
tose brush beneath ; the posterior tibia triangular, very
smooth, and irregularly concave on their external sur-
face, fringed with long pile along its two external edges,
and its extremity tipped with a short pecten of stiff setse ;
the plantts elongate and broad, nearly equal, externally
shagreened and spiuulose, with a longish auriculated
process at the external angle of the superior edge, a
dense brush of short, stiff hair beneath, and a short
pecten of stiff setse edging its subemarginate extremity ;
the claw-joint the longest of the four short subsequent
joints, and the claws bifid. ABDOMEN ovate or globose,
deflected towards its extremity, its base retuse, the last
segment triangular, and terminating obtusely.

The MALE differs in always being more intensely co-
loured ; in having the antenna distinctly longer, less dis-
tinctly geniculated, the scape shorter, the third joint of
the flagellum almost as short as its basal joint, and the
fourth as long as the terminal one, which latter two
are the longest of all, and the joints from the fourth to
the eleventh severally more or less slightly curved.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. lapidarius, Linnreus, c? ? ? . 6-10 lines.
lapidarius, Kirby.

BOMBUS. 309

2. Harrisdhis, Kirby, $ ? ° . G-10 lines. (Plate

XVI. fig. 1 ? .)

3. sub t err aneus, Linnseus. <J ? ? . 5-10 lines.
Soroensis, Kirby?

4. Latreillellus, Kirby, <? ? ? . 5-8 lines.
Tunslallana, Kirby.

5. hortorum, Linnseus, <£ ? ? • 5-10 lines.
hortorum, Kirby.

6. Soroensis, Fabricius, c? ? ? . 5-8 lines. Plate

XV. fig. 4 <? .)
Cullumana, Kirby, $.

7. lucorum, Linnseus, <^ ? ° . 5-9 lines.
lucorum, Kirby.

mrginalis, Kirby.

8. terrestris, Linnseus, £ ? °{ . 7-11 lines.
terrestris, Kirby.

9. Skrimshiranus, Kirby, £ ? °{ . 5-8 lines.
Jonella, Kirby.

10. nivalis, Dablbom, ^ ? . 6-8 lines.

11. pratorum, Linnseus, cf ? ° . 4-8 lines.
pratorum, Kirby.

sub'mterrupta, Kirby.
Donovanella, Kirby.
Burrellana, Kirby.

12. Derhamellus, Kirby, £ ? ^ . 4-8 lines.
Raiella, Kirby, ? .

13. Lapponicus, Fabricius, c? ? ? . 5-9 lines.
regelationis, Newman.

14. fragrans, Pallas, <$ ? ? . 5-10 lines. (Plate XV.

fig. 3 ? .)
fragrans, Kirby.

15. sylvarum, Linnseus, ^ ? ? . 6-8 lines. (Plate

"XVI. fig. 3?.)

310 BRITISH BEES.

sylvarum, Kirby.

16. Stnithianus, White, c? ? ? • 4-10 lines.

1 7. senilis, Fabricius, $ ? ° . 6-9 lines.
muscorum, Kirby.

18. muscorum, Linnaeus, c? ? ° . 4-9 lines.
Franci/lonana, Kirby.

floralis, Kirby.
Sowerbiana, Kirby.
BeckwUhella, Kirby.
Curtisella, Kirby.
Forsterella, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

These, perhaps the most conspicuous of our native
bees, certainly the largest, and probably the most gene-
rally known after the domestic bee, have their scientific
generic name from /36//./3o9, an imitative word, made to
indicate the sound of the hum of the insects themselves.
They have many popular names such as bumble bees,
dumbledors, humble bees, and in Scotland they are called
foggie bees. They consist of three sexes, males, females,
and neuters, which differ considerably in size, the females
being very much the largest, and the neuters the smallest.
Of course, individually, like all other insects, there is
much variation among them in the intensity or diver-
sity of the colouring of their pubescence, from which it
is chiefly that they derive their specific distinctions ; in
the relative sizes of individuals also there are great differ-
ences. It is the males, as is usual among the bees,
which are the gayest in their attire, and take the widest
range of variation, and sometimes so much exceed the
typical specific character in their markings as to require
experience to identify them, and to place them correctly

BOMBUS. 311

with their true species, which can only be ascertained
with certainty bv the examination of the male organs of

ti * O

generation, which differ in the various species, but are
undeviating in their specific uniformity. Of this cha-
racter, which I was the first to discover as being of spe-
cific value for critical determination in the separation of
the species of very difficult insects, I was enabled to make
important use in the genus Dorylus, in a monograph on
the Dorylidce, an exotic family proximate to the ants,
and which was published in Taylor's ' Annals of Natural
History' for May, June, and July, 1840. The females
and neuters of Bombus are less subject to such extensive
dissimilarity, and may be usually associated, by their pu-
bescence, in their legitimate groups. Form also frequently
lends its aid as subsidiary to their specific identification.
These and Apis mellifca are our only social bees,
which live in numerous communities under a kind of
municipal government which is considerably less per-
fectly organized in the present genus than in the domes-
tic bee, and thence they are called "villagers," in con-
tradistinction to the citizenship of the hive bee, earned
by its comparatively metropolitan institutions, and the
centralization of its government, which wholly ema-
nates from the pervading influence of the queen upon
the labours, and, indeed, upon the existence of her sub-
jects. But the Bombi are under much less social re-
straint, and admit of several co-regents in the same com-
munity, without its being productive of any disturbance
of social harmony. In the account of the genus Apathus,
the last described, we have seen that the Bombi are sub-
ject to bee-parasites, which in some closely resemble the
species they infest, and we have also shown there how
these are distributed. The hive bee is not exposed to

312

BRITISH BEES.

such intrusion, although, like these, they have many ene-
mies. In the very earliest spring months these Bombi
are abroad; for as soon as the catkins of the sallo\v
are ripe for impregnation, they are on the wing. But
it is now that the large females only are at work, for
they have to create their companions before they can
he surrounded by them. Their fruition is the result of
the previous autumn's amours, at a period too late to
form sufficient stores for the numerous brood thev will

*/

produce, and accordingly, after revelling in a brief honey-
moon, they resort, like staid matrons, to a temporary
domicile, some cavity just large enough for themselves.
In this retirement they pass the cheerless wintry months,
requiring perhaps the incubation of time thoroughly to
mature their fruit. Whether this be the case or not, as
soon as the earth begins to feel the warmth of the sun
upon its return from its far southern journey, and to
respond to the renewed vitality it gives to vegetation,
these bees feel its active influence and come forth. "With
the progress of the spring and summer most flowers are
exposed to their rifling, but they revel upon the elegant
flowers of the Horse-chestnut, and their hum is the
music of the lime when it is in blossom. According to
the species, they select a cavity for their nest, or con-
struct it upon the surface of the ground, this being the
case with the CARDER-BEES, which gather moss to con-
struct their residence. In those which inhabit beneath
the surface, the selection of an already formed cavity
greatly abridges their labour, and their instinct prompts
them to choose one sufficiently large for the prospective
community, but the nest itself is gradually extended in
size suitable to their progressive increase in numbers.
All that the parent female does at first is to form a

BOMBUS. 313

receptacle sufficiently large for her first gatherings of
pollen and honey, whereon to deposit her first eggs, and
to form a waxen cruse or two to contain the honey re-
quisite for the nest operations of keeping these masses
moist enough for the nurture of the larvae. The ma-
terial of these pots although called wax is not pro-
perly so, but is an agglutination of collected vegetable
matter, for it is not plastic to the fingers like wax, and
it burns, leaving a carbonaceous residuum very attractive
to moisture. The larvse hatched from the eggs now
deposited produce the first neuters, which spin a cocoon
wherein they rapidly undergo their transformations.
They are, in the first instance, aided to emerge from
tlieir silken cot by the parent gnawing off its top, but
subsequently this duty is performed, as the family in-
creases, by the neuters then developed. The young
bee, on emerging from its cocoon, is not thoroughly
hardened in its integument, and its pubescence also
acquires by degrees only its proper colouring ; all this
is not long in being effected, but, until they are tho-
roughly able to fly forth, they continue to be fed by
their elder sisterhood, for the neuters are properly ab-
ortive females. Males, and further productive females
are produced later in the spring, and are smaller than
the normal sizes of those sexes ; the autumnal brood, con-
sisting also of males and females, again resume the full
size of the. complete insect, and it is these females which,
after impregnation, hibernate and reappear in the fol-
lowing early spring to be each the parent of a new
progeny. The population of these nests varies consi-
derably in the several species : in some, as in that of
Bombus terrestris, there are more than t\vo hundred,
and in that of B. senilis there are about a hundred

314 BRITISH BEES.

and forty ; but it is in those that construct their nests
above the ground that the fewest are found. As with
the general population, so Avith the relative proportions
of the sexes, the several species vary. Of course all
these numbers are approximative only, as under certain
conditions they will necessarily differ, nor are the general
or relative numbers identical, even in the same species,
in the same season, and in the same locality. The pro-
portions are usually somewhat like this, about double
the number of neuters to females, and nearly the same
number of males as of females. In some of the com-
munities there are even as few as twenty neuters, and
these, of course, comprise those species which are most
rarely found by collectors. The most pugnacious of all,
and the fiercest in their attacks and most painful in
their stings, are those which live underground or in
cavities formed of accumulations of stones, and it is these
which are the least constructive in their habitations, as
if their truculent nature rejected the concomitants of
incipient civilization ; for it is those which build moss-
nests, requiring a certain amount of skill, that are the
most gentle ia their habits. With the increase of
numbers in the habitation, the rapidity of the labours
progresses, and the accumulations quickly increase ; but
there is always opportunity for the entire community to
find employment, either in enlarging their nests, when
they build them, or in securing them from the intrusion
of water, or repelling enemies, or feeding the young, and
accumulating stores. In collecting pollen they are often
covered as if they had rolled themselves in it, and this
they brush from their hairy bodies chiefly with their
posterior legs; sometimes they return in this disguised
condition, and free themselves from it only at home; in

BOMBUS. 315

other cases they bring it home collected in little masses
upon the corbiculum, or basket, of the posterior shanks.
They may be often caught thus laden, and I once cap-
tured a large female of B. terrestris, with the shanks and
plantse of both intermediate and posterior legs covered
with masses of thick clay, required doubtless at home
for some domestic repairs. The instinct of these bees
teaches them that where the tube of the flower is too
narrow for the introduction of their body, and too long
for even their long proboscis to reach the nectarium at
the bottom, they may get at the honey by piercing a
hole near that organ, which they know where to find,
and thus they readily get at the treasure that they
seek, lapping it through the aperture and carrying it
off. If, in their collecting-excursions, they are inter-
cepted by heavy rains, or loiter far away too long until
the twilight closes, they will pass the night away from
home, and return laden with their gatherings as soon as
the warmth of the sun reanimates them to activity ;
thus they will often sleep in flowers, and a nest therefore
taken at night is not always a sure indication in those
found within it, of its complete population. In their
amours, the autumnal females evince considerable co-
quetry to attract their partners : they place themselves
upon some branch in the most fervid sunshine, and here
they practise their cajoleries in the vibrations of their
wings, and allure them by their attractive postures,
The males are simultaneously abroad, and soon perceive
them. The seduction is complete, and they pounce
down upon them with impetuosity, but their brief in-
dulgence terminates in death, for with his abating vigour
the female repulses him, and he falls to the ground
never to take wing again. Amongst their insect enemies

316 BRITISH BEES.

the Dipterous genera, Volucella and Conops, are very
destructive to their larvae, — the first of these genera in
its colouring greatly resembling the species upon which
it preys. Foxes, weasels, field-mice, all prey upon them,
and, like schoolboys, often destroy the bee for the sake
of its honey-bag, an instance of which I have before
recorded as illustrative of their endurance of the loss of
a considerable portion of the body without its being
fatal.

The most interesting part of their history is perhaps
that upon which I have not yet enlarged, namely, the
structure of their nests. This is particularly the case
with the carder-bees, which felt and plait the filaments
of moss to form its whole enclosure. Such species se-
lect a spot close to an abundant supply of the material ;
this they bite off and form pellets of. To these nests a
moderately long arched passage is formed of the same
material, of sufficient size to permit the free passage of
the bees to and fro. This necessarily is shorter at first
and leads to a smaller receptacle when the parent bee
works alone. But as her offspring of workers increases,
the passage is lengthened antV the nest enlarged. To
construct it, when in full activity, the bees form a chain,
one behind the other, extending from the growing ma-
terial to the entrance of their passage to the nest, all
their heads being turned towards the moss and their backs
to the nest. The first bites off the raw material, rolls it
and twists it, and passes it to the second, by whom and
the succeeding ones it undergoes further manipulation,
and where the chain terminates at the commencement
of the passage another bee receives it and conveys it
along this into the interior, and then applies it itself
or passes it to others thus employed where it is re-

BOMBUS. 317

quired. A vaulted covering and sides is thus formed
or extended within the cavity by the plaiting or wreath-
ing together of these sprigs of moss, and the inside of
which is further strengthened by being plastered with a
coating of the pseudo-wax, which, however, smells much
like true wax, and with which the lower loose filaments
of the moss are intermingled, that one cannot be sepa-
rated from the other without tearing the whole to pieces.
Thus ingeniously do these insects enclose their home.
These nests are not always on the surface, but often
cavities of the necessary size are thus lined, and then
they are doubly secure. Within these nests, with the
increase of the population the number of the cocoons of
course increases, as they are never used twice over, ex-
cepting that when they are conveniently situated for the
purpose they are converted into honey pots. Thus
sometimes several layers are formed of these irregularly-
placed cocoons, of which the longest diameter is, how-
ever, always perpendicular to the horizon. In this way
B. muscorum, semlis, fragrans, and others build. Some
use a naked cavity, and merely secure it in its crevices
from the filtering intrusion of rain or other water, the
closing patches being formed of the usual waxy material.
This is the practice of B. terrestris, which associates the
largest communities of all ; and B. lapidarius seeks
cavities among stones or in the earth, and forms a nest
of a regular oval, but merely clothes the sides, which is
done by bits of moss and grass carried carefully home.
The domestic arrangements within are much the same
in all, the prolific females and the neuters being the
labourers, which perform all the duties of building, the
collecting and caring for the young, the function of the
males bsing limited to the perpetuation of the species.

318 BRITISH BEES.

Subsection 2. WITHOUT SPUES TO THE POSTERIOR TIBIAE.

t Permanently social.

4- 4-

Gemis 27. APIS, Linnceus.

(Plate XVI. fig. 4 cJ ? ? .)

APIS ** e 1, Kirby.

Gen. Char.: — THE NEUTER. — BODY nearly cylindrical
and subpubescent. HEAD transverse, about as wide as
the thorax ; vertex and face deeply longitudinally chan-
nelled in the centre, the latter to the apex of a small
triangular elevated space between the insertion of the
antennae, and extending to the base of the clypeus, the
sides of the face flat ; the ocelli rather large, seated far
back upon the vertex in a triangle, the anterior one in
the depth of the longitudinal channel, the two lateral
ones placed further back towards the occiput in a trans-
verse indentation crossing the longitudinal one ; com-
pound eyes very pubescent ; the hexagonal facets very
minute ; antennae short, filiform, geniculated ; the scape
nearly half the length of the flagellum and subfusiform,
the basal joint of the flagellum globose, the second sub-
clavate and subequal with the remainder, very slightly
lengthening to the apical joint, which is compressed
and as short as the second ; clypeus quadrate, convex ;
labrum transverse, linear, slightly waved in front ; man-
dibles broad at the apex, edentate, obliquely truncated
and concavo-convex ; cibarial apparatus shortish ; tongue
nearly twice the length of the labiuua, linear, pubescent,
and terminating in a small knob ; paraylossce obsolete,
coadunate with the base of the tongue; labial palpi not
quite so long as the tongue, the first joint four times as long
as the remainder, and tapering from the base to the apex
of the second joint, which is about one-fourth the length
of the preceding, and has the two very short terminal

APIS. 319

joints articulated just before its acute apex ; maxilla
broad, hastate ; labium half the length of the tongue, its
inosculation straightly transverse, not so long as the
tongue and acuminate ; the maxillary palpi extremely
short, the basal one the shortest. THORAX subglobose ;
prothorax inconspicuous; scuteUum lunulate and im-
pending over the post-scutellum, which is transverse and
linear ; metathorax truncated ; wings with a long mar-
ginal cell extending nearly to the end of the wing, and
obtuse at its extremity, three submarginal cells which
terminate at less than half the length of the marginal,
the second the largest and receiving the first recurrent
nervure towards its commencement, the third oblique
and narrow and receiving the second recurrent nervure
just beyond its centre; legs slender, subpilose ; the
anterior and intermediate tibia with a spur, their plantce
with a dense short close brush all round, the posterior
tibm triangular, glabrous within, externally smooth,
shining, and irregularly concave, the edges fringed lon-
gitudinally with long hair curving inwards, and forming
the sides of the corbiculum, or basket, which conveys the
materiel of the nest, the apex transverse and pectinated
with short rigid setse, but wholly without spurs; the
pi ant as oblong, not quite so long as the tibise, the sides
nearly parallel, the upper edge fringed with long loose
hair, subglabrous externally, but furnished internally
with tea transverse, parallel rows of short stiff golden
hair, with an auricle at the outer angle, forming collec-
tively a dense brush, and its oblique apex pectinated
with short stiff setse, the remainder of the tarsal joints
short, the fourth the shortest, and the claw joint the
longest; the claws short, robust, and bifid. ABDOMEN
retuse at the base, subcylindrical, convex above, and ter-

3.20 BRITISH BEES.

minating conically, the first segment very short, the se-
cond the longest, the ventral segments ridged longitu-
dinally in the centre.

The FEMALE, or QUEEN differs in the head not being
quite so wide as the thorax, in having the cibarial appa-
ratus very much shorter; the mandibles distinctly bi-
dentate, the inner edge of the inner tooth stretching
obliquely to the acute inner extremity of the broad apex
of the organ ; the labial palpi as long as the tongue,
with all the joints conterminous, the basal one slightly
acuminate, the second linear, the two terminal ones
more slender and shorter, the pubescence of the eyes
very much longer than in the neuter ; the leys more
robust and less pilose ; the posterior tibiae convex exter-
nally, without the lateral fringes of hair, and their
plantse merely oblong, without the external basal auricle.
The ABDOMEN is also considerably relatively longer;
and has not the central ventral ridge.

The MALE or DRONE differs from both in being con-
siderably more robust and more completely cylindrical,
and very much more densely pubescent ; the compound
eyes contiguous at the summit, occupying the whole of
the vertex, and nearly all the lateral portions of the face,
extending below to the articulation of the mandibles,
their pubescence much shorter but denser than in the
other sex ; the ocelli large, and seated at the top of the
central portion of the face in a close triangle, a little
above the insertion of the antennae, and in front of the
conjunction of the compound eyes, the lateral ones of
the triangle being closely contiguous to the upper inner
edge of those eyes; the antennas are more robust and
rather longer ; the cibarial apparatus very short ; the
labial palpi about three-fourths the length of the tongue,

APIS. 321

and the joints conterminous, the tongue robust ; the
thorax is nearly quadrate; the legs are nearly naked,
the four anterior very slender ; the posterior tibiae slightly
curved, convex externally; the posterior plantas more
robust, and more convex externally than their tibise,
they are regularly oblong, and without the basal auricle,
the rest of the joints of the tarsi are very short. The
ABDOMEN robust, and obtuse at its extremity, but its
seventh segment is concealed beneath ; the ventral seg-
ments concave longitudinally.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. mellifica, Linnaeus. (Plate XVI. fig. 4 $ ? ° .)
mellifica, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

The name of this genus, Apis, adopted by Linnseus
as the classical generic name of the bee, although with
him it comprised the whole modern family of these in-
sects, but which, as now restricted, in accordance with
its limitation exclusively to the congeners of his adopted
type, is the ancient Latin vernacular name of the honey
bee, and to which it has been ever since uniformly
attached. This name, as shown by its derivative mean-
ing, was originally imposed with direct reference to the
insect's constructive habits, as was the case with the
names given to it in the more primitive languages be-
fore referred to, and which is also the origin of its Teu-
tonic and Scandinavian appellations — Biene, Bie, and Bi,
whence our own common name for it is obtained through
the Saxon Beo, and we have beside Bye or bee, signi-
fying a dwelling. From this circumstance it would
seem that a very early and universal discernment existed

Y

322 BRITISH BEES.

of its ingenuity and skill, its significant name being
everywhere analogous.

The habits and economy of these industrious little
creatures have been a source of greater wonder and
admiration the more closely and accurately they have
been observed. They have attracted the thoughtful spe-
culation of minds of the largest compass throughout
all ages, which, reasoning upon the modus operandi of
these insects, have endeavoured to define, and determine
the differences between instinct and reason, with their
precise limitations. But baffled in their attempt to
settle whether these be affinities or analogies, it should
rather have persuaded them to adopt the motto of
Montaigne, and exclaim, Que sais-je ? Into these meta-
physical discussions it is not necessary to enter, and I
confine myself to the natural history of the insect.

Although the description of the three sexes which
comprise the population of the hive are technically given
above with scientific precision, it will be as well, perhaps,
to recapitulate them briefly, with their distinctive attri-
butes, in a more popular form.

They consist of a queen, or productive female, whose
function is thought to be exclusively to lay eggs, but who
may perhaps have some hitherto undiscovered control
over the executive of the hive, to be implied by the con-
fusion invariably following her death or her removal
from the community, and which becomes totally destruc-
tive to its organic constituency unless stayed by another
monarch being improvised, or by one extraneously sup-
plied ; one monarch alone rules without a coadjutor,
and without any equal being tolerated, for the presence
of a second queen, or the immature larva of one, even of
her own progeny, maddens her to murderous aggression,

APIS. 323

or to the impulse of emigration accompanied with a
host of adherents. She never leaves the hive when
once her duties have fully commenced, for by distinc-
tion of structure she is rendered incompetent to execute
any of the labours that devolve upon the workers;
her tongue is formed only to lap nutriment ; she has no
cysts for the secretion of wax, she is without the honey-
bag for conveying that liquid home, and her posterior
shanks are convex externally, and thus deficient in the
concave basket for carrying home the stores of pollen
or propolis, whilst their plantse are without the little
earlet at the top externally, or the close dense brush
arranged in rows within, which aid these workers in their
many manipulations. Her wings are too short to con-
vey her ponderous body through the air, and her sting
becomes stronger by being curved. Thus she is exone-
rated from labour by the incapacity of her structure to
execute it, although her duties are quite as incessant and
as arduous, being indispensable to the perpetuation of
the species.

Her consort, the DRONE, is the male of the hive, and
although the queen is monandrous or single-spoused,
and although the hive during the season rarely throws
off more than three swarms, usually restricted to the
accompaniment of a single queen, and thus but three
males are absolutely required, nature is so provident of
the great design of perpetuation, that to provide against
the possibility of its frustration, the hive usually pro-
duces about a thousand drones. A peculiarity in the
structure of the drone which facilitates his discovery of
the virgin queen when she issues from the hive on the
bridal excursion, which she makes preliminary to her
heading a swarm of emigrants, or assuming monarchy

Y 2

324 BRITISH BEES.

at home, consists in the vertical enlargement of his
compound eyes, which meet over the brow, and in the
posterior expansion of the inferior wings, which take a
broad backward sweep, giving the insect larger powers
of flight, but perhaps required as much by its own bulki-
ness and weight as for the purpose of ascending above
his bride in the upper regions of the air ; but that its
weight cannot be the sole reason is testified by the
analogous structure in the male of the genus Astata,
one of the fossorial Hymenoptera, where a similar ex-
pansion of the inferior wing is concomitant with a similar
development of the compound eyes, yet in Mrhich the
abdomen is very small, and this power is therefore evi-
dently given to these merely to increase the velocity or
the duration of their flight. The rest of the structure of
these drones disables them, like all other male bees,
for any labour ; and as they must be sustained as long
as they may be of service, the possibility of which termi-
nates with the last issue of a swarm from the hive, a
period appreciated by the instinct of the workers, they
are then driven forth, but it is in dispute whether the
workers destroy them, or whether their destruction is
effected by exposure and hunger, or by the natural limita-
tion of their lives, for although their tongues are formed
upon the same type as that of the worker, it is con-
siderably less developed, and appears to be adapted only
to obtain nutriment from the honey already collected in
the cells, as they seem even deficient in the instinct to
gather it for themselves from flowers, never being ob-
served to visit them.

The last inhabitant of the hive is the WORKER, or
abortive female, whose labour has several phases. A
difference of size amongst them has been supposed to

APIS. 325

have been noticed by observers as varying with their
occupation and duties, but as they are all constructed
in the same manner, with precisely the same organs,
which are of the same form and in the same situation,
this must be a mere imaginative surmise. Their simi-
larity of structure permits them, collectively, to apply
themselves to the same occupations which the needs of
the community may at any moment demand. Taking
them separately with their distinctive occupations at any
given time, without implying by it a permanent separa-
tion of classes, we find them to consist of wax secreters,
builders or cell-sculpturers, honey collectors, pollen col-
lectors, propolis collectors, nurses of the young, venti-
lators, undertakers to carry off the dead, who are perhaps
also the scavengers which cleanse away any occasional
dirt, sentinels to guard the hive outside and inside, and
attendants upon the queen, or as the " ' Times ' Bee
Master " very aptly designates them " ladies in waiting/'
and at all times many slumberers are reposing from
their toils. That all these duties are transferable, and
consequently are transferred indifferently from one to
the other, is implied by their general capacity for ful-
filling them resulting from this identity of structure,
which will be understood as not at all infringed by the
separate capacities I unfold as devolving from their
temporarily limited functions, all being simultaneously
in action, but distributed amongst the several indi-
viduals.

The first important occupation of the worker is the
secretion of wax for the structure of the cells, and, to
effect this, honey must be collected, for it is solely from
the digestion of honey that the wax is produced. This
in due course passes from the first stomach or honey-

326 BRITISH BEES.

pouch therein it is collected, thence to the second
stomach, and then on to the cysts or little bags which
run along on each side from the second to the fifth
ventral segments, and correspond and communicate with
eight trapezoidal depressions placed externally upon the
plates of the ventral segments — four on each side,
through the concavity of which the secreted wax exudes
in a liquid, transparent, hot state, forming a thin scale
within each, which the air hardens into a white sub-
stance, as the pulp of paper is hardened upon the form
into which it is introduced, or like salt crystallizing into
flakes from sea- water in shallow salines. This, how-
ever, is not yet wax, although its essential constituent,
but to become so these scales are removed by the sco-
pulse of the posterior plantee and their auricle, to the
intermediate feet and by these transferred to the ante-
rior pair, which pass them to the mandibles, where they
are masticated and mixed with a saliva issuing from the
mouth, and thus intermingled they consolidate into a
white opaque mass, which issues from the mouth like a
thin strip of riband, and constitutes true wax, plastic to
their manipulation. To form this secretion, the bees
having collected the honey themselves in the first in-
stance, or having consumed sufficient before leaving the
hive with the swarm, but which they subsequently ob-
tain from the supplies stored in the present hive, hang
themselves in festoons in all directions about its cavitv,

«/ *

each festoon being formed by two parallel chains of bees
clinging together ; the top bee on each side hangs by its
anterior claws to the top of the hive, and the next in
succession grasps with its fore claws the hind claws of
that and so on, until the depth of the festoon they find
to be sufficient, when the bottom bees of each chain swing

APIS. 327

themselves together, and cling to each other in the same
manner by their hind claws only. These festoons are
speedily suspended, and with a fresh swarm are in im-
mediate active operation. The secretion requires about
twenty-four hours to complete, and as this is accom-
plished the festoons break up, and these secreters convey
it to where the sculpturer bees or builders are moulding
the cells, to whom it is successively supplied by the
secreters themselves as wanted, for none is stored, al-
though the wax of old or dilapidated parts of the hive, or
of the vacated cells of the new-born queens are recon-
verted to use. These builders are very rapid in their
construction of the hexagonal cells, which, as they are
progressively completed, are stored with honey, this
being during the time assiduously gathered by the honey
collectors, and these cells are interspersed occasionally
with those wherein pollen or propolis is stored, each of
which, as the bees collecting them successively return,
is cast into the selected cell by the bee collecting it, who
returns at once to the same employment, whilst the
store thus deposited is immediately compactly pressed in
and warehoused by other bees who fulfil that duty, or
who cover it in when the cells are filled, with a waxen
covercle formed of concentric circles ; or, in the case of
the honey-cells, to keep the thickened operculum de-
posited upon it in due position and repair, after the re-
tiring of the bee which brought home the fresh store of
honey, and which had displaced it to regurgitate her
addition into the cell. This operculum or cover is of a
thicker consistency than the honey itself, and prevents
its oozing from the cells, which would often take place
from their uniformly horizontal position, were it not for
the sagacity which prompts them to introduce this pre-

328 BRITISH BEES.

ventivc, and which is not removed until the cell is filled ;
it is then covered hermetically with its waxen top.

A sufficient number of cells being ready, and sufficient
stores of honey, pollen, and propolis for the progressive
labours of the hive, and a great number of empty cells
all finished for the use of the queen, she begins to lay
her eggs. As these are hatched the duty of the nursing-
bees commences, which is to feed the young, who crave
for food like young birds, and are as diligently supplied
by these nurses with a material called bee-bread, which
consists of masticated pollen, the pollen being exclusively
stored and used for the purpose. This is mixed with
some secretion from the mouth, which converts it into a
sort of frothy jelly. These bees are never negligent of
their duties, and with their feeding the larvae rapidly grow.

To keep up a necessary supply of air in the hive, and
to prevent suffocation from heat, a certain number of
the community are employed in fanning the passages
between the cakes of comb and the whole interior of
the hive, by the vibration of their wings, which thoroughly
ventilates it, and the accumulation of deleterious air is
prevented ; some, for this purpose, being posted at the
aperture to the hive, where, this vibration causing a tem-
porary vacuum, the external air rushes in, and the chain
of succession of bees within becoming thus vibrating air-
valves completes the ventilating arrangement. While
all these operations are progressing, a certain number
are acting as a militia of citizens, who have substitutes
only in the succession and change of duties. These act
as sentinels, who guard the entrance and patrol the in-
terior and courageously intercept all inimical intrusion,
for the bees have many enemies, but who are merely so
to benefit themselves, and are not parasites of the nature

APIS. 329

of the bee parasites of the solitary kinds ; and where they
cannot individually avert it, they obtain collateral aid
from others of their staff. The next class is the atten-
dants upon the queen : these vary in number from twelve
to twenty ; they invariably accompany her wherever she
proceeds throughout the hive, for the purpose of laying
her eggs; and whether their custom gave rise to the
etiquette which attends human royalty, that a subject
may never turn the back upon the sovereign, these at-
tendant bees surround her with the head always turned
towards her, and seem to caress her with their antennse
and pay her every kind of deferential homage, those in
front moving backwards as she advances, and those on
each side, laterally, so that they ever face her; and as
they tire others succeed them in their duties. Another
set fulfil the office of keeping the hive thoroughly clean,
for the transit of such large numbers will inevitably
collect occasional dirt, as will the drift of the wind at the
entrance of the hive and the action of the ventilators
themselves. Their duty it is also to remove any extra-
neous organic body that has forcibly entered and which
may have succumbed to the vindictiveness of the bees.
Where they are not strong enough, even collectively, to
effect the removal, as in the case of a mouse or anything
else as large or larger, they then call to their aid the
wax workers and the repairers ; these enclose the ob-
noxious body, which they have the judgment to know
will become dangerous from putrefaction, to aid in its
prevention, by a cerement of wax or propolis, which pre-
vents any offensive exhalation, and thus secures the
wholesomeness of the hive.

Here is completed, with the enumeration of those
which successively repose from their toil, the several
labours of the cornmunitv which inhabits the hive.

330 BRITISH BEES.

The structure of the workers, which enahles them
to carry on all these operations with the requisite faci-
lity, is very different from that of the two sexes we
have just described. As before said, they are abortive
females, but, as I shall have occasion to explain lower
down, capable of having this special incapacity removed,
if the necessary process requisite to be adopted for the
purpose be applied within three days of their being
hatched into the larva state. The acquisition of the
faculty of fertility entails, however, the loss of all
power of pursuing any of the other occupations of the
hive practised exclusively by the workers in general.
The nurture that gives it them converts them into
queens, and moulds them to the structure of this sex de-
scribed above. As a remarkable and rare exception,
some one or other of these workers will occasionally have
power of laying a few eggs, but which are always those
of drones. The other peculiarities of their strucfure are
its adaptation to the secretion of wax above described ;
and their power of throwing up the honey they have
collected in the first stomach or honey-bag, before it
passes on by digestion, somewhat in the way the rumi-
nant quadrupeds bring up the cud, of course by muscular
action, without the convulsion of vomiting. Their next
distinction is that their mandibles are edentate and more
like spoons, and are often so used, or as the plastering-
trowel of masons is for smoothing surfaces. Their legs
remarkably differ from those of the other sexes, all of their
limbs being somewhat adapted to the collection and con-
vevance of pollen and its manipulation, as well as that of
propolis ; but it is the posterior shanks which are spe-
cially constructed for the conveyance of these materials,
by being framed externally like a little basket ; being

APIS. 331

hollowed longitudinally and their lateral edges fringed
with recurved hair, which retains whatever may be placed
within the smooth and hollow surface, and the apical ex-
treme edge has a pecten or comb of short stiff bristles.
The first joint of the posterior feet have also their dis-
tinctive form, adapted to special branches of their eco-
nomy. These are oblong, wider than the shank, and
about two-thirds its length, and consequently powerful
limbs ; at the outer angle of the edge, nearest the shank,
is a little projection called the auricle or earlet, the inner
surface is clothed with ten parallel transverse rows of
close dense hair, and its apical edge has along its whole
width a pecten similar to that of the apex of the shank.
This shank being without spurs, which only the domestic
bee is deficient in, gives the pecten a freedom of action
it would not otherwise have, and enables it to be used
together with the earlet opposite to it on the foot, as an
instrument for laying hold of the thin flakes of wax
upon the venter, and to bring them forward to the inter-
mediate legs to be passed on to the mouth, and there to
be converted into wax. The pecten of the foot and also
its brush aid in their removal in case of need, and help
as well botb in the manipulation and the storing the
materials collected. Thus, this whole structure, exclu-
sively possessed by the worker, is pre-eminently designed
for the manifold operations of the hive; and the bee
itself and its works are but one closely linked chain of
wonderful contrivances.

The entire economy of the hive seems to emanate ex-
clusively from the two most prominent attributes of in-
stinct, that of self-preservation, and that other more im-
portant axis of the vast wheel of creation, the secured
perpetuation of the kind by the conservative 0-7-0/3777, or

332 BRITISH BEES.

absorbing love of the offspring. The latter is more emi-
nently developed in the social bees than in any other
group of the family of these insects. In the solitary
bees it presents itself as a blind impulse, unconscious of
its object ; for did we admit the consciousness of the
purpose of their labours, we should evidently endow
them with reason. How could they know, without re-
flection, that the food they store in the receptacle they
form for the egg they will deposit, and which receptacle
is exactly adapted to the size that the larva which will
be hatched from it will take, is to nurture a creature
they will never see, and whose wonderful transformations
they will not therefore witness ? In the hive bee the ma-
ternal instinct exhibits itself as an energy diffused though
a multitude of individuals, but these witness the results
of their solicitude, and exclusively promote its successful
issue; and in these also the instinct of self-preservation
is a diffused impulse, which likewise includes the pre-
servation of the society.

As male and female conjunctively make up the species,
thus do the queen-bee and the neuters collectively make
up one sex, — the mother, — for the functions performed
by the female alone in the case of the solitary kinds of
bees are, in the genus Apis, separately executed. The
cares and labours of maternity devolve upon these neuters,
while the queen-bee's maternal function is limited to
merely laying the eggs with which she is replete, with
the instinctive power of selecting for them their proper
depository, — each of which is adapted in size to that of
the sex which will be produced. Her maternal instinct
stops abruptly here, without the development of an after-
thought or care for their future thriving. The instinct
of the neuters, like the anticipative promptings of the

APIS. 333

human mother, to prepare the clothing and other neces-
saries for her expected infant, has forecast the queen's
needs in its intermittent urgency, by progressively con-
structing cells fitted severally in size for the growth and
nurture of neuters, the first developed ; of drones, the
next produced ; and lastly, of queens, which soon after-
wards appear ; she instinctively knowing the proper time
and the suitable use of them, having the faculty of dis-
tinguishing them with a view to the deposit of the par-
ticular kind of eggs of which she is for the moment
parturient.

The drones, or male bees, appear to receive life for
one substantial purpose only, which is soon accomplished,
but during the short space of time its successive perform-
ance requires, it is incidentally accompanied with assist-
ance to the general community whilst they remain per-
mitted occupants of the hive, by aiding in heating and
ventilating it, — a labour repaid by the food, which they
obtain from the stores kept open for daily consumption.
Although uncoutributive to the acquisition of the riches
of. the hive, yet are they indispensable to the perpe-
tuation of the species, and their murder as supposed
by some apiarians, or their expulsion as thought by
others, in either case equally terminating in their de-
struction, seems an unworthy return for the important
service performed, although this is restricted to the
number of individuals required by the equal number of
queens that may be produced. To this number their
production might be limited, but for the chance of either
or all of these queens failing by some casualty to ob-
tain a prince consort. To baffle the possibility of this
mischance, a very superfluous number of these drones is
hatched, as above stated, which are on the alert, when

334 BRITISH BEES.

each queen successively issues forth upon her bridal
morn, to catch her favouring glances, and be the ac-
cepted groom. That they are not further conducive to
the well-being of the hive is the fault of their structure
and of their instinct, which are correlative, they being
as little fitted either in their tongue or their legs for the
uses of the hive as the queen herself. The physiology
of their intercourse is a mystery of mysteries, and would
seem to partake of the principle, modified, of that deve-
loped in the aphides, where the vital power passes on
through successive generations by the efficiency of the
energy of one ancestral intercourse. In the hive-bee
this is not the case, but in these the one espousal fer-
tilizes eggs to the number of often a hundred thousand,
yet undeveloped and even indiscernible by the aid of
the microscope in the ovaries of the queen, and which
become bees progressively in the course of a couple of
years, the supposed duration of her existence, during
the whole of which time she is laying. The accepted
male is destroyed by the effects of the amour, and when
all the queens which are to be the heads of independent
communities are successively fertilized, and have led
forth their colonies, the remaining drones issue compul-
sively from the hive and are lost in the wideness of na-
ture, and die by the natural limitation of their existence,
or become the prey of their numerous enemies.

The neuters or workers are, as it were, emanations of
the queen, or the organs whereby her several functions
as a mother are performed, considering the species as
restricted to two sexes, and thus they comprise with her,
collectively, one organic whole. That this is a consistent
view of their condition is further proved by the circum-
stance that from their larvae, upon the failure of a queen,

APIS. 335

a new queen is produced upon one being supplied with
a certain nutriment that developes the capacity that
would remain inert and abortive, were it not thus pro-
moted from its primary state. It may be questioned
whether the eggs deposited by the queen in the royal
cells are other than neuter eggs, their subsequent nature
being changed by the different quality of the sustenance
they are fed with when hatched, as is the case in the
above noticed defection of a queen. This then would
limit the queen's eggs to the eggs of neuters and of
drones, thus further corroborating the idea of the exis-
tence of but two sexes.

I have stated above the supposition that the queen's
office may be restricted to the laying of eggs, but it must
be inferred that it has a wider compass, and possibly com-
prises some administrative function in the regulation of
the hive, from the circumstance that with her loss the
entire community loses its self-possession and self-con-
trol. Labour then ceases and the hive becomes the scene
of turmoil and confusion, and unless the loss be repaired
in the way named above, which their instinct teaches
them to adopt, if any eggs have been already deposited, or
if supplied by the surreptitious introduction of another
queen which they immediately raise to their superinten-
dency, paying her the same deference they had done to
their lost monarch, or would do to a legitimately native
birth, it disperses and destroys the community. Such a
loss in its natural course must necessarily, to be effec-
tively repaired, take place in the interval after the laying
of the drones' eggs, and before those of the queens are
deposited, for otherwise she would remain unimpreg-
nated. Having thus shown reasons for supposing that
the hive actually contains but two sexes, and having also

33G BRITISH BEES.

shown that the first phase exhibited of this distributed
maternal instinct by which the neuters form conjunc-
tively with the queen a many-headed and many-hearted
mother, is their preparation of the cells for all the pur-
poses required, — the next and most important, and the one
perhaps which elevates them vastly higher in the scale of
social intelligence and affection, is the absolute develop-
ment in them only of maternal solicitude for the well-being
of the offspring. This certainly proves the existence of
the diffused maternity urged, for they feed the hatched
young as the bird does its callow, from hour to hour,
and which, when full grown, they enclose in its forma-
tive cell, to undergo its changes and become one amongst
themselves. It is not absolutely determined whether
the functions performed within the hive are restricted to
distinct sets of the workers, but it may be presumed that
the duties are transferable, for the most plausible sup-
position is, that all the offices are interchangeably per-
formed by the entire population, possibly merely limited
to daily alternation of individuals taled off each morning
for the day's duties. That an administrative regulation
must exist under some executive authority, emanating
doubtless from the centralization of all in the queen,
and communicated to the rest by her relays of atten-
dants, may be conclusively inferred, otherwise all might
similarly employ themselves from day to day, and thus
overwhelm with one work the multiplicity of labours
required for the well-being of the hive. For whilst
some are secreting the wax from the honey they have
consumed, others are moulding it into shape, others are
harvesting the bee-bread to feed the voracious Iarva3,
others are gleaning the propolis for the security of the

APIS. 337

domicile, others are collecting honey to store as needful
supplies, others are either ventilating or heating the in-
terior, others act as sentinels and guard the approaches
or patrol the passages within, and will die in that defence
like genuine patriots, and others are in attendance upon
the queen in her progresses through her dominions, and
who may individually act as aides-de-camp to convey her
commands to the rest. All these are not fanciful em-
bellishments of the narrative, but substantial and well-
authenticated facts, supported by the repetition on many
sides of careful observations, but perplexing to human
intelligence, for not the least wonder of this conventicle
of wonders — the hive — is that it confounds the astute
reason of man to comprehend it in all its siguificancies.
The first necessity of a new colony is the selection of
a locality for habitation, which is usually effected by pre-
liminary trustworthy intelligencers determining upon a
site suitable from its concurrent conveniences. A suffi-
cient supply of sustenance must be conveyed by the
emigrants to accompany the preparatory construction of
the settlement, until laud can be cleared, grain grown,
etc., and a year at least will pass, even under the most
favourable circumstances of the exertion of the greatest
industry, concurrently with the most propitious succes-
sion of the seasons, before it can become self-sustaining.
But when once the wheel is fairly on the move, round it
spins without interruption or relaxation. The colony
thrives, increasing rapidly in its population ; and where
all have put the shoulder to the wheel it climbs the steep
and rugged hill of prosperity, whilst those who are car-
ried onward by its evolutions, from each of the many
successive terraces of this noble height, survey a broad,
cheerful, and fertile landscape, extending itself with their

z

338 BRITISH BEES.

elevation, spread out to a distant horizon, which many
of the more venturous spirits amongst them, urged by
the teeming increase of their compatriots, have already
traversed, and who themselves are now rejoicing in the
establishment of offshoots, which speedily rival, in suc-
cessful fruitfulness, the wide-branched productiveness of
the parent stock.

This is strictly the history of the hive, and the paral-
lelism is complete, even to the conveyance with them of
the preliminary needful stores. Before a swarm issues
from the hive, some fly forth to select a dwelling-place,
and return, it is presumed, to make their report.

The population of the hive becoming so dense that
there is no longer room for the free and unrestrained
circulation of the ordinary processes of the community,
and so hot from the inconvenient accumulation of such
numbers, — for they extend sometimes to as many as
fifty thousand, — instinct prompts a portion of the commu-
nity to migrate. This disposition is further promoted
by the progressive, or completed development of some of
the young queens. The inveterate and internecine ani-
mosity of these — anticipated rivalry, suggesting, it is
surmised, the murderous desire, but being prevented from
its indulgence by the defensive guardianship of several
of the workers — urges the old queen to abandon at this
conjuncture her royal metropolis. The inclination to do
so, it would appear, is already foreseen by a very large
body of her subjects, for if her departure be delayed by
her successor's protracted incapacity for undertaking
the sovereign rule, the intending emigrants, having al-
ready abandoned all the labours of their old domi-
cile preparatory to their issuing forth, will cluster in
groups about the bee board until she is ready to emerge.

APIS. 339

This condition will sometimes last a clay or two, and
thence of course all is confusion both within and with-
out the hive, for her subjects have suspended their la-
bours and she has suspended her egg-laying, and roams
wildly about within, striving, whenever she approaches
a royal cell, or a fully developed young queen, to attack
the latter, and destroy her by stinging her to death, or,
to tear the former to pieces to get at the imago within,
which indicates its apprehension by a shrill piping
sound. But she is forcibly dragged back from this api-
cidal purpose by the working bees which surround each,
and who now intermit their usual deference to prevent
this destruction, and bite her and drag her back. The
future queen of the abdicated throne having, during
this turmoil, returned from her wedding tour, and be-
ing still protected from slaughterous aggression, the old
queen indignantly issues forth. This exodus takes
place usually on a brilliant and warm day, between
twelve and three, — accordingly during the hottest hours.
This is the first swarm of the year, and if the season
be very genial it will take place in May. In this
migration she is accompanied by all her most faithful
lieges, which comprise, to the honour of beehood, by
very much the largest majority of the inhabitants, to
the number usually, in a well-stocked hive, of several
thousands, — say from ten to twenty, depending on the
population of the hive.

Having thus issued forth in a body, they shortly alight
upon and about the branch of some adjacent tree, clus-
tering, in as close proximity as they can, to their royal
leader. In a natural state, when duly organized to pro-
ceed, they would thence start for the domicile that had
previously been selected by the emissaries above noted;

z2

340 BRITISH BEES.

but, as their natural habits are not at all perverted by
their subjugation to man, we will pursue their history
under his dominion. This will be the more convenient,
for in the comfortable hive to which they have been
transferred by his agency, we shall have every opportu-
nity of exactly watching their manoeuvres by the facili-
ties yielded in its being glazed for the purpose. We
shall thus be enabled to see and follow the wonderful
economy of the hive and its many mysteries, which it
would not have been possible to accomplish in an abode
of their own choice, — some cavity presented by Nature
herself, the hollow of a tree, or an excavated rock.
They are, therefore, now housed, and after the survey of
the capacity of their abode, which is a short affair,
with all the prompt energy peculiar to them they at
once commence their labours. The queen is already
matured, and ready to lay eggs. In a natural abode
the gathering of propolis would perhaps be a first ne-
cessity to make their home water-and-wind-tight, for
they abhor the inconveniences of the intrusion of wet
or cold. It is with this material that they make repairs,
fill crevices, and strengthen the suspension of their
combs, which are hung vertically ; and they apply it also
to other purposes, which we shall see hereafter. This
material is of a resinous nature, it has a balsamic odour,
and is of a reddish-brown or darker colour, and is sup-
posed to be collected from fir or pine trees, or from the
envelopes of the buds of many plants, or their resinous
exudations, especially that of the blossoms of the holly-
hock. It is exceedingly clammy, and they have been
observed ten minutes moulding it into the lenticular
pellets in which they carry it home in the corbicula, or
little basket, of the posterior tibise. They gather it like

APIS. 341

pollen with the fore feet, and pass it to the interme-
diate ones, whence it is taken by the posterior plantse,
kneaded into shape, and deposited upon the hind
shanks. It dries so rapidly that often, upon arriving
home, the bees which store it have much difficulty in
tearing it from the legs of these collectors. The hottest
days only are propitious to its gathering, for all moisture
is injurious to it, and the hottest period of the day, also,
is alone occupied in its collection. It is said that they
have been known to fly as many as from three to five
miles for it, from the circumstance that suitable plants
were not to be found within a lesser radius ; but this
may be a mistake, for their ordinary excursions are not
supposed to range wider than a single mile or something
more, and bees may be able to find it where we may
suppose it not to occur. In the abode with which we
have provided them it is not so urgent a necessity, this
being already wind-ami- water-tight, although in the
progress of their labours they find it indispensable, and
use it to fasten the crevices that intervene between the
bottom of the hive and the bee board, and, as before
noticed, to strengthen the support of the cakes of comb
which hang from the roof. The name it still retains is
that which was applied to it by the ancients, and signi-
fies before the city, as indicative of its use in strength-
ening the outworks.

Conjoined herewith is the imperative need for the
construction of cells for every purpose of the hive,
namely, for the storing of the propolis, and that of the
pollen, as also the collected honey, as well as for the
reception of the young brood, for the mature queen is
waiting impatiently to deposit her eggs. Simultaneously,
therefore, is the wax being secreted and elaborated by

342 BRITISH BEES.

the processes previously noticed. The community is
already large, and all are at once in active operation, but
four-and-twenty hours must elapse before the cells can
be commenced, for it takes that time to secrete the first
batch of wax. Festoons, as before described, of these
wax secreters are hanging in every direction within the
cavity of the hive, and as soon as the process is com-
pleted by the first festoon, this dissolves itself by the se-
veral bees unlinking their feet, and a leading bee proceeds
to the top of the centre of the hive, where she makes
herself room from the lateral pressure of other bees, by
turning herself sharply about and agitating her wings,
and there she collects the scales from the surface of her
ventral segments, manipulates them as before noticed,
and thus converts them into wax. The rest follow her,
and she collects it from them into a little oblong mass of
about half an inch ; whilst other bees from other festoons
are continually arriving to deposit their produce ; and as
soon as the mass is sufficiently large, which is speedily the
case, a sculpturer bee succeeds, and the first cell is late-
rally commenced. On the opposite side to where this
is being framed, two other bees are at work, moulding
the bottoms of two cells in apposition to the basis of the
first one. The wax keeps constantly increasing by fresh
deposits, and the rudiments of more cells are as rapidly
formed. These all emanate laterally, in a horizontal
direction or with a very slight incline towards their base.
The}'- gradually form the vertical cake of comb, for the
bottom of one entire range of cells suffices for both
sides and inevitably they are so adjusted that the bot-
toms of those on either side are each covered by one-
third of the bottoms of each cell on the opposite side,
and so conversely, receiving and communicating strength

APIS. 313

by three thus supporting one. Here comes the great
wonder of the. hive; here in this fragile structure abides
a mystery that has perplexed man's keenest sagacity.
Is it accident or is it intelligence that instructs the bee,
or is it the impulse of the instinct implanted by that
Supreme Intelligence which gives man his reason and
moulds all things to their most fitting use ?

Ray's view is precisely this ; he says : — " The bee, a
creature of the lowest forms of animals, so that no man
can suspect it to have any considerable measure of
understanding, or to have knowledge of, much less to aim
at, any end, yet makes her combs and cells with that
geometrical accuracy, that she must needs be acted by
an instinct implanted in her by the wise Author of Na-
ture." To support this idea of the geometrical skill of
the bee, he cites " the famous mathematician Pappus,"
the Alexandrian, of the time of Theodosius the Great,
who " demonstrates it in the preface to his third book
of Mathematical Collections." " First of all (saith he,
speaking of the cells), it is convenient that they be of
such figures as may cohere one to another, and have
common sides, else there would be empty spaces left
between them to no use but to the weakening and spoil-
ing of the work, if anything should get in there, and
therefore though a round figure be most capacious for
the honey, and most convenient for the bee to creep into,
yet did she not make choice of that, because then there
must have been triangular spaces left void. Now, there
are only three rectilineous and ordinate figures, which
can serve to this purpose, and inordinate, or unlike ones,
must have been, not only less elegant and beautiful, but
unequal. [Ordinate figures are such as have all their
ides and all their angles equal.] The three ordinate

344 BRITISH BEES.

figures are triangles, squares, and hexagons; for the
space about any point may be filled up either by six
equilateral triangles, or four squares, or three hexagons ;
whereas three pentagons are too little, and three hep-
tagons too much. Of these three, the bee makes use
of the hexagon, both because it is more capacious than
either of the others provided they be of equal compa*s,
and so equal matter spent in the construction of each.
And, secondly, because it is most commodious for the
bee to creep into. And, lastly, because in the other
figures more angles and sides must have met together at
the same point, and so the work could not have been so
firm and' strong. Moreover, the combs being double,
the cells on each side the partition are so ordered that
the angles on one side insist upon the centres of the
bottoms of the cells on the other side, and not angle
upon or against angle; which also must needs contri-
bute to the strength and firmness of the work."

Each cell therefore is in shape a hexagon, that is to
say, a figure with six equal sides, to each of which six
other hexagons attach, for each wall forms also one wall
of another hexagon. The basis of each hexagonal cavity
is of an obtuse three-sided pyramidal shape inverted, and
consisting of three rhomboidal plates, each forming one-
third of the basis of the three opposite cells ; thus the
edges of these three basal plates of one side support
three lateral walls of three hexagons on the other side.
The inverted triangular pyramid thus made by these
three equal rhomboidal plates, form, at one extremity and
at each pair of their posterior edges a re-entering angle,
and at the other extremity a salient angle. From these
edges spring the lateral walls of the hexagonal cell, this
shape being superinduced by the form of the edges of

APIS. 345

the basal cavity. That the bees should have been thus
guided to elect a form which combines conjunctively the
advantages of strength and capacity evidently proves that
it is their instinct which guides them, which, being an
afflation from the highest source, ensures the most com-
plete perfection in its result. That it cannot be the
effect of simultaneous lateral pressure is proved incon-
testably by the whole superstructure resulting from the
design of the base ; and this is further corroborated by
the base of one cell on one side forming invariably equal
portions of the base of three cells on the opposite side,
— all clearly the result of preconceived design impressed
upon their sensorium. From this combination of forms
results the security procured to the fragile tenement,
which consists of the very smallest quantity of material
that will cohere substantially, for the bees are exceed-
ingly parsimonious of their wax, as if the production of
it were attended w-ith pain or inconvenience, and it is
only upon the construction of the royal cells that a pro-
fusion of this choice material is squandered. As soon
as these cohorts of bees are in active operation, it is
astonishing with what pertinacity and rapidity they
labour, for within the space of four-and-twenty hours
they will construct a cake a foot deep and six inches
wide, containing within its double area some four
thousand cells. Other cakes parallel to each side of the
original are being at the same time carried forward with
an interval between each sufficient for two bees to pass
each other dos a dos, and further to promote the con-
venience of traffic within the hive, and ready communica-
tion to its several parts, passages are left through these
cakes from one to the other, so that the means of transit
are opened, which of course saves much time. The queen

346 BRITISH BEES.

is already making her progresses from one side of each
comb to the other, and depositing her eggs as rapidly as
she can, and is constantly attended by her aides-de-camp,
as I have suggested, which act, as they evidently some-
times are, as the emissaries of her commands. They
consist of ten or twelve or sometimes more, and have
been previously described. They are replaced by others
as they quit to obey orders, or as they retire fatigued,
so that she is always surrounded. The number of eggs
she will lay in a day is about two hundred. In doing
this she first thrusts her head into a cell to ascertain its
fitness, which having done, she withdraws it, and then
curving her body she thrusts the apex of her abdomen,
which tapers to the extremity for the purpose, into the
cell, wherein by means of the sheaths of her curved sting,
which act as au ovipositor, she places the egg at the
bottom of the cell. It is possibly from some taction of
this instrument that she discerns the sizes of the eggs,
and thence their respective sex. This process she con-
tinues repeating, passing from one side of the comb to
the other by means of the passages perforated through
it, making the numbers as nearly as possible tally on each
side and as opposite to each other as may be, and she
will then go forward to further cakes of comb. In this
way she lays about ten or twelve thousand in six weeks,
depending much upon the propitiousuess of the season,
but the rapidity of this laying intermits according to the
months ; the above estimate is based upon what April ,
and May produce, as it slackens during the summer
heats and again revives in the autumn, but totally ter-
minates with the first cold weather. She thus will lay
from thirty to forty thousand or more in a year.

Apiarians do not state whether the same queen heads

APIS. 347

another swarm on the following year, which perhaps she
does in those cases of excessive fertility where her abun-
dance is estimated at one hundred thousand, when hy
her sole individual capacity she populates three hives,
lu the more usual and ordinary case of her teeming with
about seventy thousand, or fewer, she evidently heads
but one swarm. With the described rapidity of the pro-
duction of the cells, although the majority are store cells
and not brood cells, conjunctively with her prolific lay-
ing, the population of the hive rapidly increases, which,
added to the large original colony, will enable it in a
propitious year to throw off a swarm of its own ; but
ordinarily she does not again lay drone eggs and royal
eggs until the following season. The period at which to
do this is taught her by the condition of the hive, as
urgent for relief to its oppressive population by an exodus.
The drone eggs are then laid, and are speedily succeeded
by the laying of the royal eggs, so that the males of the
season and the new queens may be hatched almost simul-
taneously, the drones slightly preceding the develop-
ment of the queens. As soon as the egg of a worker
is hatched, which, by means of the high temperature, is
effected in four days after the laying, it, from its birth,
is sedulously attended by the bees called nurse-bees.
'The little vermicle is very voracious and is heedfully
supplied by these careful attendants, when it has con-
sumed the quantity of bee bread already deposited in
the cell by some of these nurses as soon as the egg was
laid. This bee bread consists of pollen, taken from the
cells by the nurses, where it is garnered for the pur-
pose, being therein mixed with a slight quantity of
honey. This, in masticating, the nurses intermingle
with some secretion of their own, which gives it a sort

3i8 BRITISH BEES.

of gelatinous frothy appearance, and upon this the young
thrives so rapidly, greedily opening its jaws to receive
it, that in four more days it is full grown, and fills the
whole cell. The nursing-bees then cover this in with a
light brown top, convex externally, and within it the
larva spins for itself a cocoon to undergo its subsequent
transformations. This cocoon is spun of a fine silk, which
issues from the organ of the larva called the spinner, in
two delicate threads, which, as they pass out, cohere to-
gether. It works at this labour for thirty-six hours, and
then changes into the pupa or grub ; thus it lies quiescent
for three days, when it gradually undergoes its transfor-
mation into the imago, and it issues as a perfect insect
about the twenty-first day after being deposited as an
egg. The cocoon it has formed exactly fills the cell it
has left, which still continues to serve as a brood cell
until the succession of cocoons with which it is thus
lined renders it too small for the purpose, it is then
cleaned out by the scavengers of the hive and changed
into a honey depository, but the honey stored in such
a cell is never so pure as that which comes from the
exclusively waxen cell. Thus is effected the transfor-
mation of the working bee, which, upon the very day of
its emancipation from its nursery, commences its duties
as an active member of the community, in the successive
and several labours undertaken for the benefit of the
commonwealth, and these it assiduously follows for the
period of its natural life, which extends to about six or
eight months.

The hive is now in the liveliest activity. The swarm
which entered with the queen, and the large addition
to the population which has already been produced
from her incessant laying, are all at their several avo-

APIS. 349

cations. The whole hive, its entrance and the immedi-
ate vicinity, and far around is jocund with the bustle
and the buzz of the busy little creatures going and
coming; those returning are all laden, although some do
not appear so, but these are conveying riches home
within them, as they are returning from their excur-
sions with their honeybag well filled. There is wel-
coming recognition at the entrance to the hive, where,
on its broad platform, they all alight, and there many
are to be seen touching each other with their an-
tennse, or refreshing themselves by the vibrations of
their wings, and in doing this they often raise them-
selves on the hind legs, or they are resting for a few
seconds before they enter. Others are to be seen arriv-
ing unrecognizable from a coloured envelope of pollen
•which mantles them. The incessant hum that accom-
panies these proceedings is like the mildest tones of
the surge of the distant sea, or the inarticulate
buzz of the voice of large crowds. In this seemiuo-

" O

confusion all obey the strictest order, for each attends
to his own business only ; there is no collision or loss
of time or labour, each one fulfilling precisely its own
mission. At this period the hive is a perfect model of
order, neatness, and beauty. The combs we have seen
so rapidly growing are to be filled, and fresh cells are
being constantly constructed. The honey there stored
from the gradual gatherings of these active harvesters
is partly to be reserved for the winter's needs, and is
carefully husbanded, for each of these cells is, when
filled, closed by a covercle of wax moulded as it is sup-
plied to the operator in concentric circles, commencing
at the edge, and each circle being completed before an-
other is begun, and not in a spiral twist towards the

350 BRITISH BEES.

centre. To prevent the trampling of the discharging
bees from injuring the delicate structure of the walls of
the cell, each edge is furnished with a strengthening
rim of wax. The bulk of these stores is never broken,
except in bad wet seasons, in times of great dearth, or
upon any suspension of torpidity during their hiberna-
tion. For the ordinary and daily consumption of those
of the community whose labours confine them to the
hive, open stores are left. As of course it occupies
the excursions of several bees for some time to fill one
of these vases, and to prevent the liquid flowing out,
as it might do from its exceeding tenuity through the
influence of the summer heat, and the then increased
temperature of the hive, as well as from its inclined
horizontal position, — this is guarded against by the
precautional sagacity of the little creatures placing
upon it from the deposit of the very first supply a sort
of operculum, as before described, of a thicker consis-
tency, which lies upon the top of its progressive increase,
and thus prevents its oozing. It lies upon the honey
across the transverse diameter of the cell, and conse-
quently in a vertical position. Its purpose, like that of
the flat pieces of wood which are placed upon the water
of full pails when carried by the yoke, is to prevent its
spilling or overflowing. This small cover has to be par-
tially removed upon the arrival of a bee with fresh store,
which she herself does by tearing aside a portion of it
to enable her to regurgitate into the cavity the portion
she has brought home ; upon freeing herself from this
she does not wait to restore the dilapidation she has
caused, but proceeds on a fresh harvesting. Another
bee, whose duty it is, then readapts this cover to its
purpose, and repairs it. Their excursions to collect are

APIS. 351

variously estimated at from one to three miles, and they
make about ten a day. The bees, in their temporary
distribution of labour, are something like the Indians
which have caste, among \vhom each service has its spe-
cial servitor, who never undertakes or interferes with
the duties of another. The collection of pollen is almost
as needful to the well-being of a hive as honey, this
beingr used exclusively as the basis of the sustenance of

O v

the new brood in their larva state, in all their conditions
of worker, drone, and queen, the perfect bee itself never
partaking of it. It is variously commingled upon its
application to use with secretions of their own, which
convert it into bee bread or royal jelly, as the case may
be, to fit it for its special employment, which is done by
the nurse-bees, who diligently attend to the nurture of
all the young. The cells for storing this material are
not so numerous as the honey cells, and they are jotted
about without any distinct order, amongst them. When
a bee arrives with her store of pollen on the edge of one
of these cells, she turns round with her back to it and
thrusts it in as fast as she can free it from her legs, both
by their aid and the twisting about of her abdomen, and
then, like the honey-gatherer, commences another jour-
ney. As soon as she is gone, another bee manipulates
it with a small stock of honey, and packs it closely in.
Whilst all this is doing, the set which watch the condi-
tion of the hive, like surveyors, to apply repairs where
necessary, or to add strength and further support to the
suspended cakes of comb, im patiently await the return
of the collectors of propolis; this they tear from their
shanks as fast as they arrive and as quickly as they can,
for it rapidly hardens, especially in fine hot weather,
and they convey it away for their requirements, whilst

352 BRITISH BEES.

those \vhich collected it fly off for fresh supplies, should
more be needed. Concurrently with the execution
of all these things, wax is still being secreted by fes-
toons of bees suspended wherever there is space, the
sculpturer bees are still moulding cells, the queen is still
laying eggs, deferentially attended, as usual, by her
maids of honour ; the young brood is still being fed ;
other bees are ventilating the hive at its entrance and
within its streets and lanes by the rapid vibration of
their wings ; the sentinels are diligently keeping guard
to repel the inimical intrusion of wasps or snails or
woodlice, or the moth which is so destructive to the in-
terior in her larva state, from the covered moveable
silken retreat which she constructs impervious to the
sting, and thence with impunity gets at the silk of the
cocoons and consumes the wax, making, when once fairly
domiciled, such fearful havoc in the hive that the bees are
fain to desert it, — and the many other numerous enemies
which lust for the luscious honey, or whose voracity is
attracted by the poor little diligent bees themselves, but
who in such contingencies exhibit invincible courage,
which, if not always successful in its efforts, is always
meritorious. Where self-preservation is not the promp-
ter, or the rivalry of love the instigator, but the duration
of which is limited to a season, the feuds of the animal
world all seem to proceed from the urgency of their
gastronomic suggestions, the acrimony of which urges
craft and strength to their most powerful exhibition.
To allay hunger, destruction is perpetrated and order
despoiled, and thus our bees become the victims of the
imperativeness of this universal law. But sometimes
they are triumphant over a very large enemy ; for in-
stance, an intrusive mouse, or a slug that has slimed its

APIS. 353

way through the arched portal. They have been known
to kill these enemies within the hive as they could not
make them withdraw, but perplexity results from their
success; they are, however, gifted with the sagacity to
know that the putridity of these masses will poison with
its effluvia the atmosphere of their city which no venti-
lation can purify, and they convert that part of their
metropolis into a mausoleum, covering the carcases
with a coating of propolis, alone or mixed with wax, as
before noticed. Those which execute this summary
martial law are the sentinels — the armed police of the
hive — which guard its entrance and avenues, and patrol
its streets and lanes and passages. Concurrently with
all tlie^e doings, scavengers are needfully conveying away
any particles of dirt or other undesirable superfluity
which may have accidentally found its way in. That all
these labours produce fatigue and exact rest is proved
by the circumstance that many bees are always observed
in a state of repose, — perhaps only forty winks during
the day just to restore exhausted energy, — for they are
soon seen again to resume their toil, this inactivity
never being idleness. Whether they proceed with the
same kind of employment upon the renewal of their
work is not known, nor how long lasts a particular kind
of labour, but the change of occupation may be one of
frequent occurrence, and it may be presumed that each
bee severally and successively undertakes each task, that
the faculty for exercising it may not be extinguished.
It is very possibly a daily change, which circulates
through the entire civic population of workers.

Although the labours of the bees are divided, we do
not find that even the most successful observers, who
have had every opportunity, by the nature of the hives

2 A

354 BRITISH BEES.

they possessed, and the sagacity they applied to the de-
tection of the most minute particulars, have been enabled
to discover that these workers were permanently sepa-
rated into distinct classes, — indeed, although surmising
from this distribution of labour that such might be the
case, and thus made alert to the discovery of its posi-
tive confirmation by direct observation, they have never
been able to do so ; and they strongly deny it, maintain-
ing that these duties are individually transferable, and
that they are not restricted to certain classes, already
sufficiently implied by the organization of the workers.
Hu-ber, it is true, states that the wax-sculpturers — those
which finish the cells to their nicety of perfection — are
smaller than any of the rest of the community, to facili-
tate their operations within the cells, which may perhaps
be a foregone conclusion.

The idea of administrative vigilance in the distribution
of the labour of the community is strongly corroborated
by the fact that all the labours proceed pari passu and
in equable order, no excessive preponderance of any par-
ticular work having been observed, which would certainly
sometimes be the case were there no limiting control
over their individual action, and thus the harmonious
concurrence of all to one effect seriouslv disturbed. The

V

supposition is also strengthened by the unfailing attend-
ance of the queen's numerous and deferential retinue,
some one or other of whom, every now and then, quits
that service — perhaps as an envoy on business of govern-
ment— and is replaced by another. All these many cir-
cumstances lead to the presumption that the queen is
the heart of the whole body, the organ which forces for-
ward the circulation through its diverse channels, giving
to all the temperate pulsation of vigorous health.

APIS. 355

The hive is, of course, quite dark within, and to carry on
the numerous operations which we have noticed are done
there, either sight of a peculiar nature must lend its aid,
or some facultv residing in a sensation analogous to

t/ O

touch, but which it may be cannot be known, nor where
it may lie, but if it exist its organ is most probably the
antennae. We can, it is true, compute their eyes, which
comprise more than sixteen thousand, namely, about
eight thousand in each of the compound organs placed
laterally upon the head, each separate eye being an
hexagonal facet furnished with its separate lens and
capillary branch of the optic nerve, and also edged with
short hair ; in this hair, therefore, may lie the particular
sensation which guides them, for we cannot be sure that
this large congeries of hexagonal facets facilitate sight in
the dark, as in number and position they do not exceed
or differ from the analogous structure and number of the
same organs in many other insects which we know to be
only seers by day, and which repose at night ; but the
hairy addition to the eyes of these bees is a structure
not observed in them.

This constitution of the hive and its various opera-
tions continues during the remainder of the season until
the approach of winter cautions them from venturing
abroad, when, if the temperature of the hive is much
lowered, they hibernate and remain in a torpid con-
dition until the sunshine of the following spring, and
with it the flowering of plants, rouses them again to re-
sume their suspended labours. The population of the
hive having continued to increase, although not so
vigorously as at first, up to the very intrusion of winter,
and the renewed year giving renewed energy to the
queen, the population thence rapidly further increasing,

9 A 9
A A. A

356 BRITISH BEES.

it becomes inconveniently thronged, especially as spring
advances and hot weather sets in. These promptings
then urge her to lay drone eggs, for which preparations
have already been made by the workers, who have
already framed for their reception — they being much
larger insects — larger cells moulded precisely in the same
manner, and which are also used occasionally as recep-
tacles for honey, and always skirt the bottom of the
several combs. This task she has completed in about
five days, and it is carried on precisely in the same way
as is practised in the case of the neuters ; and they are
nurtured by nursing-workers just like them. Of these
eggs she lays, as before said, about a thousand, and the
workers by some instinctive faculty have framed about
such a number of the needful cells. The transforma-
tions of the drone occupy about twenty-four or twenty-
five days, of which three are passed in the maturing of
the egg which then hatches into the larva. This occupies
nearly seven days in attaining its full growth, and the
remaining portion of the time is spent in its spinning
its cocoon, in the same way as the larva of the worker
does, and it changes into the imago. To effect all these
changes in the transformations of all the sexes, a heat of
about seventy degrees is indispensable, but that of the
hive in summer is considerably higher. They as well as
the workers are assisted to emerge from the cocoon by
some of the older workers, who use their mandibles to
bite through the enclosure, and who also help to cleanse
them from their exuviae.

Concurrently with the formation of the brood cells of
the drones, some of the workers are constructing cells to
receive the royal eggs. These cells are totally unlike
the other cells of the hive, and are of a sort of pear-

APIS. 357

shape five times as large as the drone cells, and are
attached laterally to the edges of the comb in a vertical
position, with the narrowest part, which is the orifice,
hanging downwards. In the forming of these cells the
workers are very lavish of their wax, making the coats of
them thick and opaque, and they are irregularly rough
outside, but within very smoothly polished. Just as
the construction of these cells intervenes irregularly with
the formation of the cells of the drones, so does the
queen intermit at intervals the laying of the drone eggs
to deposit occasionally an egg in one of the royal cells,
which are riot usually completed at the time she com-
mences laying them, but are finished afterwards, even
during the time the larva is growing. This provision
seems to be made for the earliest development of the
young queens after the drones come forth, with the pos-
sible prevision that the sooner all of these young queens
are fertilized that are needful for the requirements of
the swarms that the hive may throw off, the sooner will
the hive be rid of the incumbrance and the consumption
of stores caused by the drones. The transformations of
the queens take place more rapidly than the others, for
in sixteen days they are completed, of which three are
occupied in hatching the egg, and for five they are feeding
as larvae, and in that time attain their full growth ; the
cell is then closed in with a waxen cover by the workers,
and the full-fed larva within is occupied in spinning its
cocoon, which it takes twenty-four hours to accomplish.
This cocoon is unlike that of the drones and workers,
both of which completely enclose the pupa, but the royal
larva only forms so much of a cocoon as will cover the
head and thorax, and by which imperfection she un-
consciously facilitates her destruction by her rivals in

358 BRITISH BEES.

case they are permitted to attempt it before she emerges,
— this being supposed to be the object of it, as the close
texture of the silk of the cocoon would intercept the
action of the rival queen's sting. In this state she re-
mains in complete repose up to a part of the twelfth day,
and it takes about four days more to change into the
imago, which is ready to emerge on the sixteenth. In
her larva state she has been very carefully and profusely
supplied by her nurses with the royal jelly, made in the
manner before described. This royal jelly is very sti-
mulating, it is pungent, rather acescent, and is very dif-
ferent from the food supplied to the drone- and worker-
larvse. A great many of the drones being now perfect
insects, some young queen, that is ready to go forth, is
at length permitted to do so by her guardian protectors,
for the old queen is already aware of her existence, and
has more than once attempted her destruction, but from
which she has been prevented. At a suitable opportu-
nity this young queen issues, attended by a bevy of
drones ; she immediately ascends in a spiral direction
high into the air, far out of sight, and is followed by her
suitors. Their larger capacity of flight speedily permits
them to overtake her, and they ascend above her ; one
being favoured, the rest descend again, and either at
once return to the hive or frolic about in its vicinity. It is
not long before this young queen returns, matured into
an incipient mother. Now comes renewed hostility from
her own parent, who is still prevented from the murder-
ous assault, but who succeeds in ejecting her young rival.
During this contest the hive has become a scene of con-
fusion, and the preliminaries and accompaniments of fresh
swarming take place, and in going forth she is accom-
panied by a large body of the present population, and thus

APIS. 359

the first swarm of the fresh season is thrown off. Other
queens become gradually developed, and other swarms
similarly accompany them, hut each swarm successively
diminishes in the number of its participating emigrants,
the last consisting perhaps of not more than two thou-
sand. The order of the hive is speedily restored after
each swarming convulsion has subsided, until the popula-
tion being sufficiently reduced, the motive to leave is de-
stroyed, and the queen is then permitted to execute her
murderous onslaught on the hapless young queens, which
are either still embryonic, or, if developed, have not been
allowed to leave their cells : but. where they have done

«/

so, and are still within the hive, her attendants and the
old queen's attendants open their ranks, and the furious
rivals attack each other. The contest is sharp but short,
the young queen is stung to death, the body is conveyed
away, and the old queen reigns paramount. Her next
effort is to destroy the royal brood in their cells ; the
cells she tears to pieces, the young ones within, where
developed, may be heard uttering a plaintive cry, whilst
she sounds a triumphant note as loud as the highest note
of a flute. Her throne is now free from pretenders, and
after the expulsion of the drones, which then takes place,
the entire harmony of the hive is restored for another
season. The queen meanwhile is growing old, a new
spring has set in, her stock of eggs is being exhausted,
and mortality, which afflicts even royalty itself, lays
her low. Now comes into operation that extraordinary
faculty possessed by these insects. Her death has taken
place after she had laid new spring eggs, which are to
produce a further addition of neuters and a supply of
drones. The loss of their queen is soon communicated
to the inhabitants of the hive, confusion ensues, and

360 BRITISH BEES.

labour is suspended. They group about in clusters of a
dozen or more, and after about a day's intermission of
the ordinary routine of labour they appear to have come
to a resolution. Bustle is again renewed, and several,
as the delegates of the general body, pass into the midst
of the neuter brood cells, tear down the separating walls
of three, kill two of the very young larvae, convert these
three cells into one by fitting alterations, and transfer
the care of this vermicle to the nursing bees. Under
their care, they heedfully feeding her with the royal
jelly, her transformations speedily are completed, and
whilst this is being done, drones are coming forth. As
soon as she is ready she is aided to quit her cell. She
now leaves the hive, and the drones which are already
perfected accompany her; she makes her wedding tour
in the air, and quickly returns as the queen-regnant of
the rejoicing monarchy, whose vacant throne is again
royally occupied, and the entire harmony of the hive re-
newed.

The quantity of pollen that is collected in the course
of a season, by the diligence of the bees, has been esti-
mated at from sixty to seventy pounds ; and the weight
of the honey, so affluent a hive will produce by abstrac-
tion from the bees, is calculated at as much as sometimes
fifty pounds. This, however, must be vastly exceeded
by the quantity collected, as it is being constantly
consumed for sustenance, and for the secretion of the
raw material of wax, as well as for the production of
the liquid which converts this into its mouldable con-
sistency. It is possible to estimate pretty nearly the
quantity of honey required for each secretion of the raw
material, by finding what the honey-bag will contain
when gorged, as it is this quantity which seems to make

APIS. 361

•

the eight scales of it upon the ventral plates, for they
cannot convey more up when they hang themselves in
the festoons to secern it. But it is impossible to know
what addition this liquid from their mouths makes to it
when they manipulate it into its plastic state, other bees
often undertaking this task, which may apply themselves
to it with a larger stock than the wax-secreters possess,
they being perhaps already exhausted by their labours.
It is a singular fact that wax is more rapidly and largely
made by feeding the bees with dissolved sugar than from
the honey they collect themselves, the sugar thus evi-
dently containing more of its productive elements.

Some of the labours within the hive are apparently
continued at night, or the bees may be then revelling,
after the day's toils, in social enjoyment, or otherwise
more worthily employed ; for, to use the words of the
benevolent apiarian, the Rev. Wm. Chas. Cotton, " If
you listen by a hive about nine o'clock, you will hear
an oratorio sweeter than any at Exeter Hall. Treble,
tenor, and bass are blended in the richest harmony.
Sometimes the sound is like the distant hum of a great
city, and sometimes it is like a peal of hallelujahs."

This is the history of the hive and its inhabitants.

tt

Modifications may occasionally occur, but nothing of
sufficient consequence seriously to affect or neutralize this
ordinary routine. It would occupy space already too
largely encroached upon to go into these minute parti-
culars, which, although parts of their general history,
where treated of in special detail, are not necessarily the
province of a work which speaks of them as but one
member of the family of which it collectively discourses.
As the space occupied by what was really essential to be
known about them, has exceeded the due dimensions of

362 BRITISH BEES.

their share to it, although of paramount interest, in-
finitely greater than that which attaches to the eco-
nomy of the whole of the rest of the group combined, it
will not, I trust, be considered that I terminate abruptly,
in drawing here to a close.

The close of the work concurs with the termination
of the history of its crowning marvel ; and I take leave
of my readers, with a reiteration of the hope that it
may stimulate them to undertake a study, wherein, each
step of their progress, expands the delightful contem-
plation of the manifestations of the predominance of a
vast design, emanating from the paternal benevolence
of an august, supreme, and wisely superintending Pro-
vidence.

" To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new." — Milton.

363

GENERAL AND GLOSSARIAL INDEX,

Abdomen, 25.

and its differences of form, 47.

causes of differences of cloth-
ing and form lie in its use, 48.

colour and marking and

clothing of, characteristic, 47.

elliptical, or lanceolate and

truncated, 48.

Acari infest bees, 110.
Activity of a hive at work, 348.
Acuminate, terminating gradually

in a sharp point.
Affinity, doctrine of, 136.
Agassiz' 'NomenclatorZoologicus,'

130.
Analogies between the stages of,

bees and flowers, 15.
Analogy, doctrine of, 138.
Andrena, general observations

upon, 2C4.

geography of, 67.

- infested by Stylops and No-

mada, 208.

• list of native species, 201.

natural history of, 205.

scientific description of, 200.

Andrenidse, abnormal bees, 160.
diagram of mode of folding

the tongue in repo«e, 39.
Animals, domestication of, 5.
Antenna?, 26, 28.

apparatus for cleaning, 42.

form and structure in Eucera,

29.

• possible complex function of,

57.

Antenna?, sexual differences in
length, 233.

their probable use, 55, 57.

used as means of communi-
cation, 58.

Anthidium, general observations
on, 281.

geography of, 75.

native species, 279.

natural history of, 282.

scientific description of, 279.

Anthocopa, general observations

on, 292.

geography of, 76.

native species of, 292.

natural history of, 293.

scientific description of, 290.

Anthophora, general observations

on, 238.

• geography of, 70.

infested by Melecta, 240.

list of native species, 238.

natural history of, 238.

scientific description of, 236.

- trophi of, 29.
Apathus, general observations on,

304.

geography of, 77.

list of native species, 304.

scientific description of, 302.

the Bombi they infest, 306.

Apidse, diagram of the mode of

folding the tongue in repose, 39.

= normal bees, 160, 227.

Apis, general observations on, 321 .
geography of, 79.

364

GENERAL AND GLOSSARIAL INDEX.

Apis, native species, 321.

natural history of, 322.

origin of names, 321.

scientific description of, 318.

see "Bee" and "Bees."

Appearance of bees intermittent,
54.

Appendiculated, when there is a
small appendage, as in the lip of
Halictus, and at the end of the
marginal cell of the wings, etc.

Arrangement and description of
British bees, 184.

Artesian well, peculiar results
from its soil, 223.

Articulate, where jointed, or the
point of attachment.

Artisan bees = Dasygasters, 272.

Aryans, one of the primitive divi-
sions of the human race, 4.

Atmosphere, its conditions affect
bees, 50.

Aulacus, 287.

Auriculated, with a small ear-like
appendage.

Bee, constructive habits of the,

early noticed, 93.

• general history of the, 17.

- parasites, 115.

parasitism limited, 264.

probably earlier known to

man than the silkworm, 6.

Queen, description of, 322.

see " Apis."

several species of, 87.

• symbol of royalty with the

Egyptians, 5.
The, one of the Suras of the

Koran, 90.

why attractive, 1.

Bee-bread, 347.

Bees, amount of their suscepti-
bility of pain, 57.

construction of cells, 327.

duties performed in the hive,

325.

duties transferable, 336.

early cultivated, 3, 90, 91.

economy, early known, 92.

emit an odour, 52.

Bees enemies, 51.

extent of flight, 340.

flight, modes of, varies, 49.

found in the Orkneys, 7.

genera of, determined by an

artificial mode, 170.

habits of, in America, 7.

hairiness of, reason of, 14.

intimately connected with

flowers, 3.

— largely contribute to the im-
pregnation of plants, 1 1 .

• make about ten journeys a

day, 351.

many disclosed in autumn

for the following year's spring
flight, 53.

not early risers, 51.

number of eyes, 355.

other than social, also

known, 8.

rarely walk, 50.

sagacity in finding. the honey

of flowers. 13.

scientific arrangement and

description of the genera of, 184.

secretion of wax, 325.

stages of life of, — egg, 18.

larva, 19.

- pupa, 22.

imago, 23.

337.

swarminc

their relative perfection, 56.

voice, a scale of music, 49.

Beehive represented on a tomb

at Thebes, 6. •

Beehives moved on rafts, 84.
Bifid, divided into two parts.
Binomial system invented by Lin-

nams, 129.

Body of the bee, its structure, 25.
Bombus, difficulty in determining
the species of the males, 311.
— general observations on, 310.

geography of, 78.

infested by Apathus, 311.

list of native species, 308.

natural history of, 312.

peculiarities in times of ap-
pearance, 312.
scientific description of, 307.

GENERAL AND GLOSSAIUAL INDEX.

365

T?oss of mesothorax, 45.
lluiigie. derivation of, 84.
British bees, new arrangement of,
153, 158.

Cnrder bees, 316.

Carelessness of describcrs of new

species, 125.
Carinated, having a longitudinal

elevated line.
Carpenter bees, 286.
Cells of hive, geometrical form of,

313.

— results from in-
stinct, 343.

how constructed, 342.

of wings characterise ic, 44.

Cenobites = social bees, 1G7, 302.
Ceratina, disputed parasitism of,
247.

general observations on, 246.

geography of, 71.

list of native species, 246.

natural history of, 247.

scientific description of, 245.

Cereal plants early cultivated, 4.
Chelostoma, general observations
on, 286.

geography of, 76.

infested by Fcenus, 287.

native species of, 285.

natural history of, 286.

scientific description of, 283.

Chrysis infests Chelostoma, 287.

infests Halictus, 219.

infests Osmia, 302.

Cibarial apparatus = trophi = col-
lective organs of the mouth, 16o.
Cilissa, general observations on,
213.

geography of, 67.

list of native species, 213.

scientific description of, 211.

C'lavate, club-shaped.

antennae, 28.

Claws, 42.

reflected, 285.

Climate inoperative on low forms

of life, 24.

Clothing of bees, GO.
Clypeus, 26, 28.

Coadunate, closely united without

perceptible articulation.
Cu-lioxys, difficulty of their specific

separation, 267.

general observations on, 267.

geography of, 74.

list of native species, 267.

parasitical on Megachile and

Saropoda, 267.

scientific description of, 265.

Collar, 41.
Collet cs, general observations on,
187-

geography of, 64.

list of native species, 187.

natural history of, 187.

• parasites upon, 1'JO.

scientific description of, 185.

Colour of bees, 60.

more intense in males than

females, 52.

most conspicuous in parasites,

66, 105.

Combs, structure of, 345.
Corbiculum, 319.
Correlative relations of structure

and function, 10.

Cotton, Rev. Chas. Win., a distin-
guished apiarian, 361.
Coxa, or hip, 41.

useful as a specific character,

42.

Compound eyes, 26, 27.
Compressed, when the transverse-
section is shorter than the
vertical.

Constricted, with tightened edges.

Conterminous, where the joints

follow each other in a straight

line of succession.

Crenulated, cut into segments of

very small circles.
Cubital cells of wings, 45.
Cuckoo bees, = Nudipedes, 249.
' Cui bono?' answer to, 14.1.
Curtis, inferior merit of his system,
152.

Dasygasters, artisan bees, 167,269.
Uasypocla, general observationson,
225.

366

GENERAL AND GLOSSARIAL INDEX.

Dasypocla, geography of, 69.

native species, 225.

• natural history of, 226.

scientific description of, 224.

Deflected, when bent downwards.

Dentate, toothed.

Depressed, when the vertical sec-
tion is shorter than the trans-
verse.

Describers, dnties of, 125.

Describing, modes of, before Lin-
nseus, 129.

Differences of appearance between
the parasite and the sites, 260.

Digiti, anterior tarsi, 42.

Dissimilarity frequent between the
sexes, 52.

Domestication of animals, 5.

Dorylus, 311.

Drone — male bee, description of,
323.

Edentate, without teeth.

Egg of bees, 18.

Egyptian hieroglyphics and sculp-
tures represent the bee, 6.

Elenchus, habits of, described by
Dale, 113.

infests Halictus, 113, 219.

Elliptical, oval but with the longi-
tudinal diameter more than
twice the length of the trans-
verse.

Enemies of bees, 51.

Epeolus, general observations on,
260.

geography of, 73.

- native species, 260.

• parasitical on Collet es, 190-

260.

scientific description of, 258.

Epipharynx, 29, 30.

Eueera, general observations on,

232.
geography of, 70.

infested by Nomada sex-

cincta, 235.

native species, 232.

natural history of, 234.

scientific description of, 231.

Face of bees, 26, 27.

Families, characteristics of, differ,

136.

Family, 134.
Feeling of bees, 56.
Femur, or thigh, 41.
Fertilization of flowers produced

by bees, 11, 51.
Feuds of animals, the occasion of,

352.
Filiform, thread-like, of uniform

thickness.

antennae, 28.

Fimbriated, = fringed.
Flagellum of antennae, 18.
Flight of bees, variation of their

modes, 49.

Floral clock of Linnaeus, 50.
Flowers, the, chiefly agreeable to

bees, 15.

earliest, sought by the bees,14.

fertilized by bees, 11, 51.

Foenus infests Chelostoma, 287.
Forcipate, when crossing each

other.
Foreign bees, conspicuous genera

of, 101.
Form of parasitical bees often

adapted to that of their sitos, 48.

determined by function, 48.

Fossorial Hymenoptera, 45.
Fruit preserved in honey, 83,
Fusiform, = spindle-shaped.

Genee, 26, 28.

Genera of bees determined artifi-
cially, 176.
- that emit scents, 296.

with and without parasites,

264.

Gemculated, bent like a knee or
angle.

Genus, 132.

— type of, 133.

Geography of the British genera
of bees, 61.

Gibbous, = irregularly swollen.

Glabrous, without hair or pubes-
cence.

Gregarious, its application to bees,
57.

GENERAL AND GLOSSAHJAL INDEX.

367

Habit, 127.

Habitat, 127.

Habits, 127.

and structure correlative,

24.

Halictophagus, 115.
Hal ictus, general observations on,

216.

geography of, 68.

its enemies, 220.

list of native species, 215.

natural history of, 217.

parasites that infest it, 219.

- peculiar autumnal appear-

ance, 218.

scientific description of, 214.

structure of labrum, 30.

Hastate, halberd shaped.
Head of bees, 26.
Hedychrum infests Halictns, 219.
Heriades, general observations on,

288.

geography of, 76.

native species of, 288.

scientific description of, 288.

Hindoo Koosh, supposed cradle of

the human race, 3.
Hirsute, covered with long stiffisli

hairs, thickly set.
Hives, darkness of, 355.

- moved on rafts, 85.
Homer mentions bees, 6.
Honey, different kinds of, 87.
• green, 87.

• its use in the East, 83.

- mode of lapping, described
by Reaumur, 35.

- mode of storing, 350.

- prescribed by Mahomet, 91.
quantity in a well-filled hive,

360.

- sometimes poisonous, 86.

• used in medicine by the
Egyptians, 90.

Honey-bee, see "Apis," "Bee,"
" Bees."

mode of secreting wax,

330.
Hypopharynx, 29.

Imago of bees, 23.

Inosculation, point of close con-
tact or attachment.

Insect-feeding reptiles before gla-
cial period, 5.

Inserted, where joined.

Instinct, its applications, 56.

occasional divergence of,

55.

of bees, 55.

Job mentions bees, 6.

Kirby's merits, 144.

— system of bees, 147.

Labial palpi, 30, 32.

number of joints invariable,

32.

structure in Andrenidae, 32.

structure in Apidse, 32.

Labiuin = lower lip, 30, 31.
Labrum = upper lip, 28, 30.
Lacerate, with a roughened irre-
gular edge.

Lanceolate, oblong but gradually-
tapering.

Latreille's classification not
adopted, 168.

Leg, diagram of, 42.

Legs, general description of, 41.

Length of an insect is taken from
the front of the head to the apex
of the abdomen ; the breadth,
or the expansion of the wings,
it is not usual to give, except-
ing under such circumstances
as would be particularly men-
tioned, viz. in cases of an ex-
cessive enlargement or diminish-
ment of the typical size.

Life, duration of, of bees, 54.

Line, the twelfth part of an inch ;
the ordinary measure used in
entomology for the fractions of
an inch, unless the insect is much
more than an inch long.

Linnaeus, author of the binomial
system, 129.

great merits of, 129.

Lobated, divided into equal
rounded parts.

368

GENERAL AND GLOSSAHIAL INDEX.

Low forms of life unaffected by

climate, 24.
Lunate, semicircular.
Lunulate, crescent-shaped.

Macropis, general observations on,

222.

geography of, 68.

native species, 221.

scientific description of, 220.

strong analogy to the Scopu-

lipedes, 222.
Macula? indicantes, 13.
Mahomet prescribes honey, 91.
Males, how to be united to their

partners, 179.
Mandibles, 30, 40.

used for boring, 44.

Marginal cells of wings, 45.

Margmate, edged with a ridge.

Mason bees, 296.

Maxilla;, 30, 31.

Maxillary palpi, 30, 32.

number of joints invariable in

Andrenidse, 32.
number of joints variable in

the Apida?, 32.
Megachile, general observations

on, 272.

geography of, 74.

• infested by Ccelioxys, 275.

• list of native species, 271.

• natural history of, 273.

scientific description of, 269.

Melecta, general observations on,

Q=;c:

AtlO.

• geography of, 72.

list of native species, 255.

• parasitical on Anthophora,

240.

scientific description of 255.

• very pugnacious, 258.

Melittobia, a parasite upon An-
thophora, 241.

Meloe prpscarabseus, parasitical
on bees, 110.

said to infest Andrena, 209.

Mesothorax, 26, 44.

Metallic colouring of bees, 248.

Metathorax, 26.

Metropolis, 128.

Miltogramma, parasitical upon

Colletes, 190.
Mode of killing coloured insects,

253.
Moniliform, bead-like.

antenna?, 129.

Monodontomerus, parasitical on

Anthophora and Osmia, 302.
Moths help to fertilize flowers, 13.
Motives for new arrangement, ] 63.
Mouth, organs of=trophi = ciba-

rial apparatus, 163.
Mucronated, having one or more

short stout processes.
Mutilla, parasitical on bees, 117.

Names usually given from a sexual

peculiarity, 232.
Natural history, attractions of, 141.

modes of treating, 140.

Natural system, 139.

Nature, its large operations, 8.

Nectaria of plants indicated to bees

by a difference of colour, 12.
Nervures of wings, 44.
Nomada, general observations on,

252.

geography of, 72.

intermittent appearance of

N. Fabriciana, 230.
list of native species, 250.

scientific description of, 249.

sexcinr'ta infests Eucera, 235.

the bees infested by them,

253.

Nomenclature simplified by Lin-
naeus, 130.

Nudipedes, = cuckoo-bees or para-
sites, 116, 167, 249.

Nylander's mode of determining
the species of Crelioxys, 268.

Obsolete, more or less inapparent.
Ocelli = simple eyes = stemmata,

26, 27.
Oman, 110 bees in the province of,

84.
Osmia, general observations on,

296.
geography of, 76.

list of native species, 2'Jo.

GENERAL AND GLOSSARIAL INDEX.

369

Osinia, natural history of, 290.

parasites of, 302.

scientific description of, 294.

Ovate, oval, but with the ends cir-
cumscribed by unequal segments
of circles.

Ovipositor = egg-depositor, 1 7.

Pain, doubtful susceptibility of, 57.
Palrua?, 41.

Palmated, spread like a hand.
Palpi, their probable use, 55.
Panurgus, general observations on,

229.

geography of, 69.

- infested by Noniada Fabri-

ciana, 230.

list of native species, 228.

natural history of, 229.

scientific description of, 227.

Paraglossa3, 33.

obsolete in the artisan bees,

33.

where attached, 33.

Parasites, different kinds of, 110.

of bees, 109.

Parasitical bees always the most

highly coloured, 66, 105.
unlike the sitos, 116.

— Cenobites, 302.
Passions of bees, 56.
Pecten or comb, a fringe of very

short stiff hair attached to an

organ, for various purposes.
Pectinated, having an edge like a

comb.

Pediculus Melittse, 209.
Petiole, a foot-stalk.
Pharynx, 29, 30.
Pile, long loose hair.
Pilose, with long, distinct, flexible

hair.
PlantsB, 42, 46.

structure of, in hive-bee, 46.

Plants agreeable to bees, 15.

impregnated by bees, 11.

Pleasures attending the pursuit of

natural history, 14.
Plumose, with long hair, but not

thick.
Pollen, collection of, 351.

Pollen, mode of collecting and

transferring from limb to limb,

43.
probable reasons for the ways

of carrying, 47.
quantity usually collected,

360.

Polliniferous, = pollen- collecting.
Posterior legs, then* structure for

the conveyance of pollen, 46.

- where attached, 46.
Post-scutellum, 26, 45.
Priority, law of, the basis of syno-
nymy, 131.

Proboscis, 39.

Process, a protuberance.

Processes in bees, peculiarities of,

258.

Propolis, nature of, 340.
Prosopis emits an agreeable

odour, 195.
general observations upon,

193.

geography of, 65.

list of native species, 192.

- presumed parasitism of, 193.
scientific description of, 191.

supposed liable to Stylops,

195.

Prothorax, 26, 41.

Pubescent, covered with short fine
hair.

Pubescent, hirsute, setose, pilose,
plumose, various relative con-
ditions of hairiness.

Pulvillus, 42.

Punctate, impressed with many
points.

Punctiilate, with fine impressed
points.

Punctured, with coarsely im-
pressed points.

Pupa of bees, 22.

Queen-bee, administrative func-
tion of, 336.

and worker constitute a

unity, 331.

description of, 322.

etiquette of attendants,

329.

370

GENERAL AND GLOSSARIAL INDEX.

Q.ueen-bee, great fertility of, 334.
- loss of, disorganizes the
hive, 335.

number of eggs laid by,

346.

Kay's merits, 142.

Reaumur's description of the mode

of lapping honey, 35.
description of the structure

of the tongue, 35.
Recurrent nervures of wings, 45.
Retuse, with an obtuse cavity.
Ridged, with a slight projecting

margin.
Rugose, rough or irregularly

wrinkled.

St. Fargeau's merits, 151.
Sanskrit notice of bees and honey,

92.
Saropoda, general observations,

243.

geography of, 71.

native species of, 243.

• rapidity of flight, 245.

scientific description of, 242.

• vivacity of its eyes, 2 11.

Scape of antenna;, 28.
Scent emitted by bees, 52.
Scientific arrangement and de-
scription of the genera, 184.

principles of, 118.

cultivation of British bees,

142.
Scopnlipedes = brush-legged bees,

163, 227.
Sculpture, 60.
Scutellum, 26, 45.
Senses of bees, 56.
Sensorium of bees, 55.
Serrate, edged like a saw.
Serratulate, edged like a fine saw.
Setae, slightish bristles.
Setifo'rm, like bristles.
Setose, bristled.
Shakespeare on the polity of the

bee, 1.
Shemitic branch of the human

race. 4.
Sight of bees, 56.

Simple eyes = ocelli = stemmata,

26, 27.

Sinus, a cavity.
Sitos, the supporter of a parasitical

bee.
Sizes, differences of, what caused

by, 41.

Smell of bees, 56.
Social bees, = Cenobites, 302.
Species, 122.

- name of, 128.
the basis of natural science,

121.

vary in number of indivi-
duals, 123.

Specific character, 124.

descriptions, 125.

differences, 123.

Sphecodes, difficulty of specific
distinction in, 198.
- doubts as to its parasitism,
199.

general observations on, 197.

geography of, 66.

list of native species, 197.

scientific description of, 196.

Spines at apex of abdomen of bees,
268.

Spinose, with minute spiny pro-
cesses.

Spinulose, with fine spiny pro-

CGSS6S

Spiral hair of the scopa, 226, 229.

Spurs, 42.

Sqiuimulae = epaulettes = wing-
scales, 26, 44.

State of Great Britain before the
glacial period, 5.

Stelis, general observations on,
263.

geography of, 73.

— infests Osinia, 302.
- list of native species, 263.

scientific description of, 262.

Stemmata = simple eyes = ocelli,
26, 27.

Stephens, inferior merit of his sys-
tem, 152.

Strepsiptera parasitical on bees,
111.

Strigilis, 42.

GENERAL AND GLOSSARTAL INDEX.

371

Structure and habits correlative,
24.

of the body of the bee, 25.

similarity of, caused by di-
rect and proximate affinities, 48.

Stylops infests Audrena, 208.

- infests Halictus, 219.

Kirby's description of, 112.

manners of, described by

Thwaites, 114.

some particulars of it8 his-
tory, 208.

Sub, a prefix indicating the di-
minution of a condition, as sub-
hastate, subovate, subtruncate,
etc. etc.

Subrnarginal cells of wings, 45.

Swarming, 358.

Synonymy, 130.

System, value of, 119.

Tarsus of fore legs in some males
greatly dilated, 43.
— or foot, 41.

Taste of bees, 56.

Thorax, 26, 41.

Tibia, or shank, 41.

Tomb at Thebes with representa-
tion of a beehive, 6.

Tongue improperly called labium,
34.

of Andrenidse folded in re-
pose, 39.

of Apidse folded in repose,

39.

- once thought tubular, 34.
where situated, description

of it, 33.

Topical geography of British bees,
96.

Tooth, a long sharp process.

Toothed, spinose, spinulose, tu-
berculated, mucronated, den-
tate, the various conditions of
extraneous prominences or pro-
cesses.

Transformationsof worker bee, 347.

— of the drone, 356.
of the Queen, 357.

Transverso-cubital nervures of
wings, 45.

Travellers, suggestions to, 64, 95.
Trifid, divided into three parts.
Trivial name, 128.
Trochanter, 41.

Trophi = organs of the mouth, 26,
29.

- diagram of, 30.
Truncated, abruptly terminated.
Tuberculated, with small pro-
cesses.

Turonian branch of the human
race, 4.

Uses of bees in the impregnation
of plants, 11.

Vedas mention bees, 6.

Telum, 42.

Ventilation of the hives, 328.

Ventral segments, peculiarities of

structure of, 234.
Vernacular names of insects, 9.
Vertex, 26.
Vertigo of bees, 87.
Voice of bees, 49.

Wagtails destroy fossorial Ilyme-

noptera, 306.
Wax, secretion of, 325.
Wax used by the Eomans, 85.
Westwood's classification not

adopted, 168.
Wild bees, 8.

- come forth early in the spring,
10.

Will of bees, 56.

Willughby's merits, 143.

"\\ ing, treatise on the, 45.

Wiug-hooklets for uniting the
upper and lower wings, 45.

Wing-scales = squamulse, 26.

Wings, 44.

diagram of, 45.

Worker-bee, description of, 324.

duties performed by, 325.

peculiarities of struc-
ture, 330.

- secretion of wax, 325.

Xenophon's description of poison-
ous honey, 86.

PLATE I,

1 <J . Colletes Daviesiana, male.

1 ? . „ „ female.

2 <$ . Prosopis dilatata, male.

2 ? . Prosopis signata, female.

3 (J . Sphecodes gibbus,
3 ? . „ „

PLATE II.

1 cf . Aridrena fulva, male.

1 ? . „ „ female.

2 £ . Andrena cineraria, male.

2 ? . „ female.

3 c? . Aridrena nitida, male.

3 ? . „ „ /e-ma/e.

^

,EW.]U,r.*>r. Dell« '

PLATE III.

1 c? . Andrena liosse, male.

1 ? . „ „ female.

2 <$ . Andrena longipes, male.

2 ? . „ „ female.

3 $ . Andrena cingulata, male.
3 ? . „ , , female.

2,3

PLATE IV.

1 £ . Halictus xanthopus, male.

1 ? . „ „ female.

2 cT . Halictus flavipes, male.

•2 ? . „ „ female.

3 £ . Halictus minutissimus, male.
3 ? . „ female.

.Pl*l

2

i

R>

PLATE V.

1 r? • Cilissa tricincta, male.

1 ? . . „ „ female.

2 $ . Macropis labiata, male.

2 ? . „ . „ female.

3 c? . Dasypoda hirtipes, male .
3 ? . „ „ female

PLATE VI.

1 (J . Panurgus Banksianus, male.

1 ? . „ „ female.

2 c? . Eucera longicornis, male.
2$. „ „ female.

3 cJ . Anthopliora retusa, male.
3?. „ „ female.

Plate

PLATE VII.

1 $ . Anthopliora furcata, male.
1? . „ „ female.

"2 £ . Saropocla bimaculata, male.
a ? . „ „ female.

3 (J . Ceratina ccerulea, m«/e.
3 ? . „ female.

Plate VI I.

3=?

PLATE VIII.

1 $ . Nomada Goodeniana, male.

1 ? . „ female.
'2 cJ . Nomada Lathburiana, male.

2 ? . „ „ female.

3 (J . Nomada sexfasciata, male.
3 ? . „ „ female.

PLATE IX.

1 J1 . Nomada signata, male.

1 ? . „ „ female.

2 (J . Nomada Fabriciana, male.

2 ? . „ >, female.

3 $ . Nomada flavoguttata, male.
3 ? . „ „

y.iseo.

PLATE X.

1 $ . Nornacla Jacobsese, male.
1 ? . „ „ female.

3 <£ • Nomada Solidaginis, male.
3 c?* (should be ? ). „ female.
3 (J . Nomada lateralis, ma/e.
3 ? .

\

.E.W.Robmson. DslVetSP. 1866.

PLATE XI.

1 <£. Melecta punctata, male.

1 ? . „ „ female.

2 (J . Epeolus variegatus, male.
2?. „ „ female.

3 c? . Stelis phseoptera, male.

PUuXI

lo'

1

35

r

PLATE XII.

1 $ . Coelioxys Vectis, male.

1 ? . „ „ female.
2(J. Megachile maritima, male.

2 ? . „ „ female.

3 (J . Megachile argentata, male.
3?. „ „ female.

.EW.Roi

PLATE XIII.

1 J1 . Anthidium mariicatum, male.

1 ? . „ „ female.

2 c? • Chelostoma florisomne,, male.

2 ? . „ „ female.

3 (J . Heriades truncorura, ma/e.

3 ? . „ „ female.

.Plate

PLATE XIV.

1 <$ . Osmia bicolor, male.

1 ? • „ ,, female.

2 c? . Anthocopa Papaveris, male.
2?. „ „ female.

3 c? • Osmia leucomelana, male.
3?. „ „ female.

.Pla-

i
3(5

\. J

.E.W.P.okmson . De!l.et5c?.lSt>6.

PLATE XV.

1 <$ . Apathus rupestris, male.

1 ? . „ „ female.

2 $ (should be ? ). Apathus campestris, female.

2 ? . Apathus vestalis, female.

3 ? . Bombus fragrans, female.

4(£. „ Soroensis (var. Burrellanus), wale.

.E .WBobmson !

PLATE XVI.

1 ? . Bornbus Harrisellus;/ewia/e.

2 $ . „ Lapponicus, female.

3 $ . „ sylvarum, female.

4 J . Apis mellifica, male.
4 ? . „ „ female.
4 ? . neuter.

4c5

Plat

49

-

4?

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companied by an elaborate Wood-Engraving of the Plant, with dissections of its
leading structural peculiarities.

THE FIELD BOTANIST'S COMPANION; a Familiar

Account, in the Four Seasons, of the most common of the Wild Flowering
Plants of the British Isles. By THOMAS MOORE, F.L.S. One volume,
Demy Svo, 424 pp.. With 24 Coloured Plates, by W. FITCH, 21*.

An elegantly-illustrated volume, intended for Beginners, describing the plants
most readily gathered in our fields and hedge-rows, with the progress of the sea-
sons. Dissections of the parts of the flowers are introduced among the Figures,
so that an insight may be readily obtained not only of the Species and name of
each plant, but of its structure and characters of classification.

4 LOVELL REEVE AND CO. S PUBLICATIONS.

THE FLORAL MAGAZINE, containing Figures and De-

scriptions of New Popular Garden Flowers. By the Rev. H. HONYWOOD
DOMBRAIN, A.B. Imperial Svo. Published Monthly, with 4 Plates, 2*. Gel.
coloured. Vol. I. to IV., each with 64 plates, £2. 2s.

Descriptions and Drawings, beautifully coloured by hand, of new varieties of
Flowers raised by the nurserymen for cultivation in the Garden, Hothouse, or

Conservatory.

THE TOURIST'S FLORA ; a Descriptive Catalogue of the

Flowering Plants and Ferns of the British Islands, France, Germany,
Switzerland, Italy, and the Italian Islands. By JOSEPH WOODS, F.L.S.
Demy Svo, 504 pp., 18s.

Designed to enable the lover of botany to determine the names of any wild
plants lie may meet with while journeying in our own country and the countries
of the Continent most frequented by tourists. The author's aim has been to
make the descriptions clear and distinct, and to comprise them within a volume
of not inconvenient bulk.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FLORA OF MENTONE.

By J. TRAHERNE MOGGRIDGE. Royal Svo. Parts I. and II., each, 25 Co-
loured Plates, 15*.

In this work a full page is devoted to the illustration of each Species, the
drawings being made by the author from specimens collected by him on the spot,
and they exhibit in vivid colours the beautiful aspect which many of our wild
flowers assume south of the Alps.

A FLORA OF ULSTER, AND BOTANIST'S GUIDE

TO THE NORTH OF IRELAND. By G. DICKIE. M.D., F.L.S.,
Professor of Botany in the University of Aberdeen. A pocket volume,
pp. 176, 3*.

A small volume, not exclusively of local interest, containing, as it does, much
valuable information relative to the geographical and altitudiual range of the
Species.

VICTORIA REGIA ; or, Illustrations of the Royal Water

Lily, in a series of Figures chiefly made from Specimens flowering at Syon
and at Kew, by W. FITCH, with Descriptions by Sir W. J. HOOKER, F.R.S.
Elephant folio, 21*.

A superb series of illustrations of this wonderful plant, with an elaborate
series of dissections.

LOVELL REEVE AND CO.'s PUBLICATIONS. 5

CUllTIS'S BOTANICAL MAGAZINE, comprising the

Plauts of the Royal Gardens of Kevv, and of other Botanical Establish-
ments. By Dr. J. D. HOOKKR, F.R.S., Director of the lioval Gardens.
Royal 8vo. Published Monthly, with G Plates, 3*. &d. coloured'. Vol. XXII.
of the Third Series (being Vol. XCII. of the entire work) in course of imp-
lication. A Complete Set from the commencement may be had.

Descriptions avid Drawings, beautifully coloured by hand, of newly-discovered
plants suitable fur cultivation in the Garden, Hothouse, or Conservatory.

THE RHODODENDRONS OP SIKKIM- HIMALAYA;

being an Account, Botanical and Geographical, of the Rhododendrons re-
cently discovered in the Mountains of Kastern Himalaya, from Drawings
and Descriptions made on the spot, by Dr. J. D. Hooker, F.R.S. I'.v Sir
W. J. HOOKER, F.R.S. Folio, 30 Coloured Plates, £3. 16*.

Illustrations on a superb scale of the new Sikkim Rhododendrons, now being
cultivated in England, accompanied by copious observations on their distribution
and habits.

MONOGRAPH OP ODONTOGLOSSUM, a Genus of the

Vandeous Section of Orchidaceous Plauts. By JAMES BATEMAN, Esq.,
F.R.S. Imperial folio. Parts I. to III., each with 5 Coloured Plates, and
occasional \Vood Engravings, 21*.

Designed for the illustration, on an unusually magnificent scale, of the new
and beautiful plants of this favoured genus of QrchidacKa, which are being now
imported from the mountain-chains of MexicOj Central America, New Granada,
and Peru.

SELECT ORCHIDACEOUS PLANTS. By ROBEKT

AVARNER, F.R.H.S. AVith Notes on Culture by K. S. WILLIAMS. In
Tcii Parts, folio, each, with 4 Coloured Plates, \2s.GJ.; or, complete in
one vol., cloth gilt, £6. 6.?.

PESCATOREA. Figures of Orchidaceous Plants, chiefly
from the Collection of M. PESCATORE. Edited by M. LINDEN, with the
assistance of MM. G. LUDDEMAN, J. E. PLANCHON, and M. G. RMCJIEX-
BACH. Folio, 48 Coloured Plates, cloth, with morocco back, £5. 5s., or
whole morocco, elegant, £6. 6s.

6 LOVELL REEVE AND CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.

GENERA PLANTARUM, ad Exemplaria imprimis in Her-

bariis Kewensibus servata definita. By GEORGE BENTHAM, F.R.S., Pre-
sideat of the Linneau Society, and Dr. J. D. HOOKER, F.R.S., Assistant-
Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew. Vol. I. Part I. pp. 454. Royal 8vo,
21*. Part II., 14s.

This important work comprehends an entire revision and reconstruction of the
Genera of Plants. Unlike the famous Genera Plautarum of Eudlicher, which is
now out of print, it is founded on a personal study of every genus by one or
both authors. The First Part contains 56 Natural Orders and 1287 Genera. The
Second, now printing, will contain as many more. The whole will be completed
in Four or Five Parts.

FLORA OF THE ANTARCTIC ISLANDS; being Part

I. of the Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships 'Ere-
bus ' and 'Terror,3 in the years 1839-1843. By Dr. J. D. HOOKER, F.R.S.
Royal 4to. 2 vols., 574 pp., 200 Plates, £10. 15s. coloured. Published
under the authority of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.

The 'Flora Antarctica' illustrates the Botany of the southern districts of South
America and the various Antarctic Islands, as the Falklands, Kerguelen's Land,
Lord Auckland and Campbell's Island, and 1370 species are enumerated and
described. The plates, which are executed by Mr. Fitch, and beautifully coloured,
illustrate 370 species, including a vast number of exquisite forms of Mosses and
Seaweeds.

FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND; being Part II. of the

Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships 'Erebus' and
' Terror,' in the years 1839-1843. By Dr. J. D. HOOKER, F.R.S. Royal
4to, 2 vols., 733 pp., 130 Plates. £16. Ifis. coloured. Published under
the authority of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.

The ' Flora of New Zealand ' contains detailed descriptions of all the plants,
flowering and flowerless, of that group of Islands, collected by the Author during
Sir James Ross" Antarctic Expedition ; including also the collections of Cook's
three voyages, Vancouver's voyages, etc., and most of them previously unpub-
lished. The species described amount to 1707; and of the Plates, which illus-
trate 313 Species, many are devoted to the Mosses, Ferns, and Algse, in which
these Islands abound.

FLORA OF TASMANIA ; being Part III. of the Botany

of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships 'Erebus' and 'Terror,'
in the years 1839-1843. By Dr. J. D. HOOKER, F.R.S. Royal 4to, 2
vols., 972 pp., 200 Plates, £17. 10s., coloured. Published under the
authority of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.

The 'Flora of Tasmania' describes all the Plants, flowering and flowerless, of
that Island, consisting of 2203 Species, collected by the Author and others.
The Plates, of which there are 200, illustrate 412 Species.

LOVELL KEEVE AND CO/S PUBLICATIONS. 7

HANDBOOK OF THE NEW ZEALAND FLORA; a

Systematic Description of the Native Plants of New Zealand, and the Chal-
hum, Kennadec's, Lord Auckland's, Campbell's, and M.icquarrie's Jslands.
By Dr. J. D. HOOKER, F.ll.S. Demy Svo, Part I., 475 pp., 16s. Pub-
lished under the auspices of the Government of that colony.

[Part II. in the Press.

A compendious account of the plants of New Zealand and outlying islands,
published under the authority of the Government of that colony. The pu -( \\(,
Part contains the Flowering Plants, Ferns, and Lycopods ; the Second Part, con-
taining the remaining Orders of Cryptogamia, or Flowerless Plants, with Index
and Catalogues of Native Names and of Naturalized Plants, will appear shortly.

FLORA AUSTRALIENSIS • a Description of the Plants of

the Australian Territory. By GEORGE BENTHAM, F.ll.S. , President of the
Liuneaii Society, assisted by FERDINAND MUELLER, F.ll.S. , Government
Botanist, Melbourne, Victoria. Demy Svo. Vol. I. 566 pp., and vol. II.
530 pp., 20s. each. Published under the auspices of the several Govern-
ments of Australia. [Vol. III. nearly rcitili/.

Of this great undertaking, the present volumes, of more than, a thousand
closely-printed pages, comprise about one-fourth. The materials are derived
not only from the vast collections of Australian plants brought to this country
by various botanical travellers, and preserved in the herbaria of Kew and of the
British Museum, iuchiding those hitherto unpublished of Banks and Solander,
of Captain Cook's first Voyage, aud of Browu in Flinders', but from the very
extensive aud more recently collected specimens preserved iu the Government
Herbarium of Melbourne, under the superintendence of Dr. Ferdinand MutlliT.
The descriptions arc written in plain English, and arc masterpieces of acciir,-icy
and clearness.

FLORA HONGKONGENSIS; a Description of the Flow-

ering Plants and Ferns of the Island of Hongkong. By GEORGE BEN-

THAM, P.L.S. With a Map of the Island. Demy Svo, 550 pp., Ifi*.

Published under the authority of Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the

Colonies.

The Island of Hongkong, though occupying an area of scarcely thirty square
miles, is characterized by an extraordinarily varied Flora, partaking, however, of
that of South Continental China, of which comparatively little is known. The
number of Species enumerated in the present volume is 1056, derived chiefly
from materials collected by Mr. Hinds, Col. Champion, Dr. Hance, Dr. Harland,
Mr. Wright, and Mr. Wilford.

FLORA OF THE BRITISH WEST INDIAN ISLANDS.

By Dr. GRISEBACH, F.L.S. Demy Svo, 80<> pp., 37*. 6rf. Published
under the auspices of the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
Containing complete systematic descriptions of the Flowering Plants and

Ferns of the British West Indian Islands, accompanied by an elaborate index of

reference, aud a list of Colonial names.

8 LOVELL REEVE AND CO.'s PUBLICATIONS.

FLORA VITIENSIS ; a Description of the Plants of the

Viti or Fiji Islauds, with an Account of their History, Uses, and Pro-
perties. By Dr. BERTHOLD SEEHANN, F.L.S. Royal 4to, Parts I. to
IV. each, 10 Coloured Plates, 15*. To be completed in 10 Parts.

This work owes its origin to the Government Mission to Viti, to which the
uthor was attached as naturalist. In addition to the specimens collected, the
author has investigated all the Polynesian collections of Plants brought to this
country by various botanical exploreis since the voyage of Captain Cook.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE NUEVA QUINOLOGIA

OF PAVON, with Observations on the Barks described. By J. E. HOWARD,
F.L.S. With 27 Coloured Plates by W. FJTCH. Imperial folio, half-
morocco, gilt edges, £6. 6*.

A superbly-coloured volume, illustrative of the most recent researches of Pa-
von and his associates among the Cinchona Barks of Peru, founded mainly on a
manuscript and collection of specimens which were sold shortly before Pavon's
death to a botanist of Madrid, from whom they passed into the hands of the
author.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF SIKKIM-HIMALAYAN PLANTS,

chiefly selected from Drawings made in Sikkim, under the superintendence
of the late J. F. CATHCART, Esq., Bengal Civil Service. The Botanical
Descriptions and Analyses by Dr. J. D. HOOKER, F.R.S. Imperial folio,
24 Coloured Plates and an Illuminated Title-page by W. FITCH, £5. 5*.

As an example of botanical drawing, colouring, and design, this work has never
been surpassed. Only a few copies remaiu.

THE LONDON JOURNAL OF BOTANY. Original

Papers by eminent Botanists, Letters from Botanical Travellers, etc. Vol.
VII., completing the Series. Demy Svo, 23 Plates, 30$.

JOURNAL OF BOTANY AND KEW MISCELLANY.

Original Papers by eminent Botanists, Letters from Botanical Travellers,
etc. Edited by Sir W. J. HOOKER, F.R.S. Vols. IV. to IX., Demy Svo,
12 Plates, £1. 4*. A Complete Set of 9 vols., half-calf, scarce, £10. 16*.

ICONES PLANTARUM. Figures, with brief Descriptive

Characters and Remarks, of New and Rare Plants, selected from the
Author's Herbarium. By Sir W. J. HOOKER, F.R.S. New Series. Vol.
V., Royal Svo, 100 plates, 3U 6d.

LOVELL REEVE AND CO.'s PUBLICATIONS.

FERNS AND MOSSES.

THE BRITISH FERNS ; or, Coloured Figures and De-

- scriptions, with the needful Analyses of the Fructification aud Venation, of
the Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland, systematically arranged. By Sir
W. J. HOOKER, F.R.S. Royal 8vo, 66 Plates, £2. 2*.

The British Ferns and their allies are illustrated in this work, from the
pencil of Mr. FITCH. Each Species has a Plate to itself, so that there is ample
room for the details, on a magnified scale, of Fructification and Venation. The
whole are delicately coloured hy hand. In the letterpress an interesting account
is given with each species of its geographical distribution in other countries.

GARDEN FERNS ; or, Coloured Figures and Descriptions,

with the needful Analyses of the Fructification aud Venation, of a Selection
of Exotic Ferns, adapted for Cultivation in the Garden, Hothouse, and Con-
servatory. By Sir W. J. HOOKER, F.R.S. Royal 8vo, 64 Plates, £2. 2s.

A companion volume to the preceding, for the use of those who take an in-
terest in the cultivation of some of the more beautiful aud remarkable varieties
of Exotic Ferns. Here also each Species has a Plate to itself, and the details of
Fructification and Venation are given on a magnified scale, the Drawings being
from the pencil of Mr. FITCH.

FILICES EXOTICA ; or, Coloured Figures and Description

of Exotic Ferns, chiefly of such as are cultivated in the Royal Gardens of
Kew. By Sir W. J. HOOKER, F.R.S. Royal 4to, 100 Plates, £6. 11*.

One of the most superbly illustrated books of Foreign Ferns that has been
hitherto produced. The Species are selected both on account of their beauty of
form, singular structure, and their suitableness for cultivation.

FERNY COMBES; a Ramble after Ferns in the Glens and

Valleys of Devonshire. By CHARLOTTTE CHANTER. Second Edition.
Fcp. Svo, 8 coloured plates by Fitch, and a Map of the County, 5s.

HANDBOOK OF BRITISH MOSSES, containing all that

are known to be Natives of the British Isles. By the Rev. M. J. BERKELEY,
M.A., F.L.S. Demy Svo, pp. 360, 24 Coloured Plates, 21s.
A very complete Manual, comprising characters of all ihe species, with the
circumstances of habitation of each; with special chapters on development and
structure, propagation, fructification, geographical distribution, uses, and modes
of collecting and preserving, followed by an extensive series of coloured illustra-
tions, in which the essential portions of the plant are repeated, in every case ou
a magnified scale.

10 LOVELL KEEVE AND CO.'s PUBLICATIONS.

SEAWEEDS.

PHYCOLOGIA BRITANNICA; or, History of British

Seaweeds, containing Coloured Figures, Generic aud Specific Characters,
Synonyms and Descriptions of all the Species of Algse inhabiting the
Shores of the British Islands. By Dr. W. H. HARVEY, F.R.S. Royal
8vo, 4 vols., 765 pp., 360 Coloured Plates, £6. 6,?. Reissue in Monthly
Parts, each 2s. &d.

This work, originally published in 1851, at the price of £7. 10s., is still the
standard work on the subject of which it treats. Each Species, excepting the
minute ones, has a Plate to itself, with magnified portions of structure and fruc-
tification, the whole being printed in their natural colours, finished by hand.

SYNOPSIS OF BRITISH SEAWEEDS, compiled from

Dr. Harvey's ' PHYCOLOGIA BUITANNICA.' Small 8vo, 220 pp., 5s.

A. Descriptive Catalogue of all the British Seaweeds, condensed from the
' Phycologia Britannica.' It comprises the characters, synonyms, habitats, and
general observations, forming an extremely useful pocket volume of reference.

PHYCOLOGIA AUSTRAL1CA; a History of Australian

Seaweeds, comprising Coloured Figures and Descriptions of the more cha-
racteristic Marine Algse of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South
Australia and Western Australia, and a Synopsis of all known Australian
Algffi. By Dr. HARVEY, F.R.S. Royal 8vo, 5 vols., 300 Coloured Plates,
£7. 13*.

This beautiful work, the result of an arduous personal exploration of the
shores of the Australian continent, is got up in the style of the ' Phycologia
Britanuica' by the same author. Each Species has a Plate to itself, with ample
magnified delineations of fructification and structure, embodying a variety of
most curious and remarkable forms.

NEREIS AUSTRALIA; or, Alg?e of the Southern Ocean,

being Figures and Descriptions of Marine Plants collected on the Shores
of the Cape of Good Hope, the extra-tropical Australian Colonies, Tas-
mania, New Zealand, and the Antarctic Regions. By Dr. HARVEY, F.R.S.
Imperial 8vo, 50 Coloured Plates, £2. 2$.

A selection of Fifty Species of remarkable forms of Seaweed, not included in
the ' Phycologia Australica,' collected over a wider area.

LOVELL REEVE AND CO.'s PUBLICATIONS. 11

FUNGI.

OUTLINES OF BRITISH FUNGOLOGY, containing

Characters of above a Thousand Species of Fungi, and a Complete List of
all that have been described as Natives of the British Isles. By the Rev.
M. J. BERKELEY, M.A., F.L.S. Demy Svo, 484 pp., 24 Coloured Plates,
30*.

Although entitled simply 'Outlines,' this is a good-sized volume, of nearly 500
pages, illustrated with more than 200 Figures of British Fungi, all carefully
coloured by hand. Of above a thousand Species the characters are given, and
a complete list of the names of all the rest.

THE ESCULENT FUNGUSES OF ENGLAND. Con-

taiuing an Account of their Classical History, Uses, Characters, Develop-
ment, Structure, Nutritious Properties, Modes of Cooking and Preserving,
etc. By C. D. BADHAM, M.D. Second Edition. Edited by F. CUEEEY,
F.R.S. Demy Svo, 152 pp., 12 Coloured Plates, 12*.

A lively classical treatise, written with considerable epigrammatic humour,
with the view of showing that we have upwards of 30 Species of Fungi abounding
in' our woods capable of affording nutritious and savoury food, but which, from
ignorance or prejudice, are left to perish ungathered. "I have indeed grieved,"
savs the Author, " when reflecting on the straitened condition of the lower
orders, to see pounds of extempore beefsteaks growing on our oaks, in the shape
of Fistulina hepatica ; Puff-balls, which some have not inaptly compared to
sweetbread ; Hydna, as good as oysters ; and Agaricus deliciosus, reminding us of
tender lamb-kidney." Superior coloured Figures of the Species are given from
the pencil of Mr. Fitch.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF BRITISH MYCOLOGY, com-

prising Figures and Descriptions of the Funguses of interest and novelty
indigenous to Britain. By Mrs. T. J. HUSSEY. Royal 4to ; First Series,
90 Coloured Plates, £?. 12s. 6d. ; Second Series, 50 Coloured Plates,
£4. IQs.

This beautifully-illustrated work is the production of a lady who, being an
accomplished artist, occupied the leisure of many years in accumulating a port-
folio of exquisite drawings of the more attractive forms and varieties of British
Fungi. The publication was brought to an end with the 140th Plate by her
sudden decease. The Figures are mostly of the natural size, carefully coloured
by hand.

12 LOVELL REEVE AND CO.'s PUBLICATIONS.

SHELLS AND MOLLUSKS.

ELEMENTS OF CONCHOLOGY; an Introduction to the

Natural History of Shells, and of the Animals which form them. By
LOVELL REEVE, F.L S. Royal Svo, 2 vols., 478 pp., 62 Coloured Plates,
£2. 16*.

Intended as a guide to the collector of shells in arranging and naming his
specimens, while at the same time inducing him to study them with reference
to their once living existence, geographical distribution, and habits. Forty-
six of the plates are devoted to the illustration of the genera of shells, and
sixteen to shells with the living animal, all beautifully coloured by hand.

THE LAND AND FRESHWATER MOLLUSKS indi-

genous to, or naturalized in, the British Isles. By LOVELL REEVE, F.L.S.
Crown 8vo, 295 pp., Map, and 160 Wood-Engravings, 10s. Qd.

A complete history of the British Land and Freshwater Shells, and of the
Animals which form them, illustrated by Wood-Engravings of all the Species.
Other features of the work are an Analytical Key, showing at a glance the na-
tural groups of families and genera, copious Tables and a Map'illustrative of
geographical distribution and habits, and a chapter on the Distribution and
Origin of Species.

CONCHOLOGIA ICONICA; or, Figures and Descriptions

of the Shells of Mollusks, with remarks on their Affinities, Synonymy, and
Geographical Distribution. By LOVELL REEVE, F.L.S. Demy 4to, pub-
lished monthly in Parts, 8 Plates, carefully coloured by hand, 10*.

Of this work, comprising illustrations of Shells of the natural size, nearly
2000 Plates are published, but the plan of publication admits of the collector
purchasing it at his option in portions, each of which is complete in itself. Each
genus, as the work progresses, is issued separately, with Title and Index ; and au
Alphabetical List of the published genera, with the prices annexed, may be pro-
cured of the publishers on application. The system of nomenclature adopted
is that of Lamarck, modified to meet the exigencies of later discoveries. With the
name of each species is given a summary of its leading specific characters in
Latin and English ; then the authority for the name is quoted, accompanied
by a reference to its original description ; and next in order are its Synonyms.
The habitat of the species is next given, accompanied, where possible, by par-
ticulars of soil, depth, or vegetation. Finally, a few general remarks are offered,
calling attention to the most obvious distinguishing peculiarities of the species,
with criticisms, where necessary, on the views of other writers. At the com-
mencement of the genus some notice is taken of the animal, and the habitats
of the species are worked up into a general summary of the geographical distri-
bution of the genus.

LOVELL 11EEVE AMD CO. S PUBLICATIONS.

13

CONCHOLOGIA ICONICA IN MONOGRAPHS.

Genera. Plates. £.

ACHATINA 1?, 1

ACHATINELLA G 0

ADAMSIELLA 2 n

AMPHIDESJI.V 7 o

AMPULLARIA _s 1

ANASTOMA 1 0

ANATINA 1- 0

ANCILLABIA 12 0

ANCULOTCS 6 0

ANOMIA 8 0

AHCA 17 1

ARGONAUTA 4 0

ARTEMIS 10 0

ASPEBGILLUM 4 0

AVICULA 18 1

BUCCINCM 14 0

BULIMUS 89 5

BtTLLlA 4 0

CALYPTR.EA 8 0

CANCELLARIA 18 1

CAPSA 1 0

CAPSELLA 2 0

CABDITA 9 0

CABDIUM 22 1

CARINAHIA 1 0

CASSIDABIA 1 0

CASSIS 12 0

CERITHIUM 20 1

s. d.
9 o
8 0

15 G

1 6

5 6

15 6

8 0

10 6

1 6

5 6

13 0

5 6

3 0

18 0

12 0

5 6

10 6
3 0
1 6
3 0

11 6
8 0

CHAJIA ..................... 9 ......... 0

CHAMOSTBEA ............ 1 ......... 0

CHITON ..................... 33 ......... 2

CHITONELLUS ............ 1 ......... 0

CHONDROPOHA ......... 11 ......... 0

CIKCE ..................... 10 ......... 0

COLUMBELLA ............ 37 ......... 2

CONCHOLEPAS ............ 2 ......... 0

CONUS ..................... 5fi ......... 3

CORBULA .................. 5 ......... 0

CRANIA ..................... 1 ......... 0

CBASSATELLA ............ 3 ......... 0

CRENATTJLA ............... 2 ......... 0

CREPIDULA ............... 5 ......... 0

CRUCIBULUM ............ 7 ......... 0

CrcLOPHOfcus ............ 20 ......... 1

CTCLOSTOMA ............ 23 ......... 1

CYCLOTUS .................. 9 ......... 0

CYMBITJM .................. 26 ......... 1

CYPRJEA ..................... 27 ......... 1

CYPRICARDIA ............ 2 ......... 0

CTTHEREA ............... 10 ......... 0

DELPHINULA ............ 5 ......... 0

DIONE ..................... 12 ......... 0

DOLIUM ..................... 8 ......... 0

DONAX ..................... 9 ......... 0

EBURNA .................. 1 ......... 0

ERATO ..................... 3 ......... 0

EULIMA ..................... 6 ......... 0

PASOIOLABIA ............ 7 ......... 0

FICULA ..................... 1 ......... 0

FlSSTJRELLA ............ 16 ......... 1

Fusus ..................... 21 ......... 1

GLAUCONOME ............ 1 ......... 0

HALIA ..................... 1 ......... 0

HALIOTIS .................. 17 ......... 1

HARPA ..................... 4 ......... 0

HELIX ..................... 210 ......... 13

HEMIPECTEN .............. 1 ......... 0

HEMISINTJS ............... 6 ......... 0

HINNITES ................ 1 ......... 0

HIPPOPUS .................. 1 ......... 0

IANTHINA .., 5 ......... 0

15 6

5 6
11 6

1 6

2 0
1 6

14 0

13 0

7 0

3 0
11 0

6 6
1 6

66
90
56
90
11 6

13 0

14 6
30

13 0
66

15 6

10 6

11 6
16
40
80
90
16

06

66
16
1 G
16
56
5 0
16
80
;. 6
16
66

Genera.

Plates.

To 3 ..

ISOCABDIA 1 ..

LEPTOPOMA 8 ..

LINGULA 2

e

o
o

0
0

LlTHODOMUS 5 0

LlTTOHlNA 18 1

LUCINA 11 0

LUTRARIA 5 0

MACTRA 21 1

MALLEUS 3 0

MANGELIA 8 0

MARGINELLA 27 1

MELANIA 59 3

MELANOPSIS 3 0

MELATOMA 3 0

MEROK 3 0

MESALIA & EGLISIA... 1 0

MESODESMA 4 0

META 1 0

MITHA 39 2

MODIOLA 11 0

MONOCEBOS 4 0

MUREX 37 2

MYADORA 1 0

MTOCHAMA 1 0

MYTILUS 11 0

NASSA 29 1

NATICA 30 1

NAUTILUS 6 0

NAVICELLA & LATIA ... 8 0

NEBITA 19 1

NERITINA 37 2

OLIVA 30 1

ONISCIA 1 0

ORBICULA 1 0

OVULUJI 14 0

PALUDINA 11 0

PALUDOHUS 3 0

PARTULA 4 0

PATELLA 42 2

PECTEN 35 2

PECTUNCTJLUS 9 0

PEDTJM 1 0

PEBNA 6 0

PHASIANELLA 6 0

PHORUS 3 0

PINNA 34 2

PIRENA 2 0

PLACUNANOMIA 3 0

PLEUBOTOMA 40 2

PSAMMOBIA 8 0

PSAMMOTELLA 1 0

PTEROCERA 6 0

PTEROCTCLOS 5 0

PURPTTKA 13 0

PTRAMIDELLA 6 0

PVRULA 9 0

EANELLA 8 0

RICINULA 6 0

EOSTELLABIA 3 0

SANGUINOLABIA 1 0

SCABABUS 3 0

SlGABETUS . 5 0

SIMPULOPSIS 2 0

SlPHONARIA 7 0

SOLARIUM 3 o

SOLETELLINA 4 0

SPONDYLUS IN 1

STROMBUS 19 1

STBUTHIOLAEIA 1 n

TAPES 13 0

4 0

i e

10 <;

3 0

6 6

3 0
14 0

6 6

6 6

4 0
10 6
14 6
14 6

0

4 0

4 0
1 6

5 6
1 G
9 6

11- 0

5 6

7 0
1 6
1 G

14 0

17 0

18 0

8 0

10 6
4 0

7 0
18 0

1 6

1 6

18 0

14 0

4 0

5 6
13 0

4 6

11 6
1 6

8 0
8 0
4 0
3 0

3 0

4 0
10 6

10 6
6
0

6 6
16 6

8 0

11 6
10 6

8 0
4 6
1 6
4 0
6 6

3 0

9 0

4 0

5 6

3 0

4 0
1 G

16 6

1

14

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