256 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 
also, are of the greatest use in the tropics, because they so 
rapidly devour noxious carrion, which, if allowed to remain 
until its decomposition and evaporation, would speedily cause 
a pestilence. Their superabundance, which would be dan- 
gerous to human life in the tropics, is checked by different 
species of ant-eaters and armadillos in all the tropical re- 
gions of America, Asia, and Africa. These animals feed 
exclusively on ants, and are unquestionably the instruments 
which a kind Providence has created for the purpose of 
limiting the increase of these voracious insects. 
But our limits forbid us further to pursue this subject, 
and we, therefore, shall now conclude our history of the Hy- 
menoptera with the consideration of the most interesting 
genus of the order—in fact, the most interesting, and in 
many respects the most useful, of all the insects that inhabit 
the globe, viz., 
The Honey-bee (Apis mellifera). 
This is an insect that in every country has universally 
attracted man’s attention and his nurturing care, from the 
earliest ages of the world to the present time—a little an- 
imal that has, probably, excited more admiration from all 
classes of men than any other animated being on the earth’s 
surface not of the genus Homo—an insect celebrated in 
the most ancient as well as the most modern records of the 
world, both sacred and profane, as a riddle to the learned, 
a marvel to the scientific, a faithful servant to the ignorant, 
who has only known that it would ten-fold reward his care, 
an object of wonder and reverence to the superstitious and 
the heathen, and a model lesson to the child! Even in our 
nursery rhymes it has been distinguished above all other 
animals as an example of industry, and the little lisping 
child is taught to sing 
‘How doth the little busy bee 
Improve each shining hour!” 
