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- 



