DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM IXSECTS. 1«7 



consequence of an insect's biting off the buds of a particular species of 

 Origanum, is collected in large quantities. The insect in question is a 

 small smooth red caterpillar about half an inch long, which changes into a 

 yellowish moth with black stripes upon the wings {Phal. cerar'm Molina). 

 Early in the spring vast numbers of these cater|)illars collect on the 

 branches of the Chila, where they form their cells of a kind of soft white 

 wax or resin, in which they undergo their transformations. This wax, 

 which is at first very white, but by degrees becomes yellow and finally 

 . brown, is collected in autumn by the inhabitants, who boil it in water, and 

 make it up into little cakes for market.^ 



Honey, another well-known product of insects, has lost much of its im- 

 portance since the discovery of sugar ; yet at the present day, whether 

 considered as a delicious article of food, or the base of a wholesome vinous 

 beverage of home manufacture, it is of no mean value even in this country ; 

 and in many inland parts of Europe, where its saccharine substitute is 

 much dearer than with us, few articles of rural economy, not of primary 

 importance, would be dispensed with more reluctantly. In the Ukraine 

 some of the peasants have 400 or 500 bee-hives, and make more profit of 

 their bees than of corn'^ ; and in Spain the number of bee-hives is said to 

 be incredible ; a single parish priest was known to possess 5000.^ 



The domesticated or hive-bee, to which we are indebted for this article, 

 is the same, according to Latreille in every part of Europe, except in some 

 districts of Italy, where a different species {^Ap'is Ugustica of Spinola) is 

 kept — the same probably that is cultivated in the Morea and the isles of 

 the Archipelago.^ Honey is obtained, however, from many other species 

 both wild and domestic. What is called rock honey in some parts of 

 America, which is as clear as water and very thin, is the produce of wild 

 bees, which sus])end their clusters of thirty or forty waxen cells, resembling 

 a bunch of grapes, to a rock^ : and in South America large quantities are 

 collected from the nests built in trees by Trigona Amallhca, and other 

 species of this genus recently separated from Apis®; under which pro- 

 bably should be included the Bamburos, whose honey, honest Robert Knox 

 informs u's, whole towns in Ceylon go into the woods to gather.'' Accord- 

 ing to Azara, one of the chief articles of food of the Indians who live in 

 the woods of Paraguay is wild honey.^ Captain Green observes that, in 

 the island of Bourbon, where he was stationed for some time, there is a 

 bee which produces a kind of honey much esteemed there. It is quite of 

 a green colour, of the consistency of oil, and to the usual sweetness of 

 honey superadds a certain fragrance. It is called green honey, and is 

 exported to India, where it bears a high price.® One of the species that 

 has probably been attended to ages before our hive-bee, is Apisfascinta of 

 Latreille, a kind so extensively cultivated in Egypt, that Niebuhr states he 

 fell in upon the Nile, between Cairo and Damietta, with a convoy of 4000 



' Molina's Chili, i. 174. 



2 Communications to the Board of Agricult. vii. 286. 



3 Mills on Bees, 77. 



4 Latr. in Humboldt and Bonpland, Recueil d'Ohserv. de Znohgie, &c. (Paris, 

 1805), 300. 8 Hill in Swammerdam, i. 181. note. 



fi Latr. uhi snpr. 300. 



' Knox's Ceijlon, 25. 8 ^^„y. dans VAmer. Merid. i. 162. 



9 M. Latreille appears to have described this bee uiider ihc nameof^/Jis uni- 

 color. 3Iem. sur ks AbtiUes, 8. 39. 



