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 



