FAMILLE. {Apis. **. e. 1.) 

 This section, besides A. mellifica, contains se- 

 veral other species, three very distinct ones I ob- 

 served in Mr. Drury's cabinet, of which one came 

 from Bengal, another from Madras, and a third 

 from the Cape of Good Hope ; an equal number, 

 still diiFerent, may be seen in Sir J. Banks's rich 

 collection. All these species have the transversely 

 striated posterior scopulge, which has usually beein 

 looked upon as the exclusive character of the com- 

 mon hive bee, like this too they have no spines at 

 the apex of the third pair of tibia?, a very peculiar 

 circumstance by which the insects of this section 

 of the present family are distinguished, not only 

 from all other u4pes., but also from every other in- 

 dividual of the Class Hymenoptera that I have had 

 an opportunity of examining. It is worth inquiry 

 whether the mode of nidification of all, or any of 

 the wild bees that belong to this section, be similar 

 to that of the cultivated one ; should it turn out so, 

 as I think it most probably would, as all have the same 

 instruments, they might, perhaps, be domesticated 

 in countries where the common one may not yet 

 be introduced ; or some of them may have boen 

 domesticated and mistaken for the common one. 



Linneus, in his Systema Natur^T^, says under -A. 

 meUifica : " Femina — antennis articulis decem — 

 Mares — antennis undecimarticulatis — Operariae — 

 antennis quindecimarticulatis." In every one of 

 these assertions, with due deference to a name so 

 deservedly great be it spoken, he is mistaken, for 



o 3 the 



