MICHENER: THE APOIDEA 575 



the relative ecological iinequalness of faunas there are probably no more than 

 20,000 species of aculeate wasps inhabiting the surface of the earth. A figure 

 of 15,000 species is more likely nearer the actual number, especially when infra- 

 specific categories are taken into consideration. At first glance this figure seems 

 small and suggests the possibility that at least certain main aspects of the study 

 of the total world aculeate wasp fauna may soon be realized. This is particu- 

 larly encouraging, for if we multiply 15,000 fourfold in an attempt to gain an 

 appreciation of the principal developmental stages requiring morphological de- 

 scription alone, the chore ahead of us seems proportionately greater. Com- 

 pounded to this arithmetical evaluation of extrapolated progress are those in- 

 tangible aspects of the study which involve the fields of evolution, physiology, 

 economics, and so forth, which, if reduced to a numerical power of 15,000 sug- 

 gest an almost hopelessly astronomical figure — indeed one unobtainable in the 

 life expectancy of the earth if presently employed methods of research and 

 recording remain essentially the same. 



The studies of the past century have provided us with a fund of knowledge 

 — largely unsynthesized and scarcely subjected to interpretation — a basis, as it 

 were, for theoristic advances in thinking and methodology so as to guide us in 

 our ideal representation of the world wasp fauna. 



THE APOIDEA 



Charles D. Michener 

 University of Kansas 



Taxonomy 



The period 1853 to 1953 is particularly appropriate for a review of our 

 knowledge of bees because in the year 1853 Part I of Frederick Smith's Cata- 

 logue of Hymenopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum ap- 

 peared. This and the next part of the same work, published in 1854, dealt with 

 the bees. In these publications a vast number of genera and species from all 

 parts of the world were described. The first step in making known information 

 on any group of organisms has always been the naming of the species involved. 

 Numerous previous authors had started this process, so that most of the bee 

 species of Europe were known by 1853 (see, for example, Kirby's Monographia 

 Apum Angliae, 1802) and numerous species from elsewhere had also been de- 

 scribed. The most comprehensive descriptive work prior to 1853 appeared in 

 1836 and 184:1— Histoire naturelle des insectes, Hymenopteres, by Lepeletier de 

 Saint^Fargeau. For their time both Lepeletier and Smith did excellent work, 

 which has served subsequent bee students as well as can be expected. 



From Smith's time to the present there has been a continuous series of au- 

 thors describing species of bees from various parts of the world. In this country 

 E. T. Cresson, of Philadelphia, described a great many bees, most of them in 

 the years 1878 and 1879. Curiously, although Cresson lived and worked in Penn- 



