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 



