330 DIRECT BE.NEFITS DERIVED FROM 1NSECT8. 



in every part of Europe, except in some districts of 

 Italy, where a different species (Apis ligustica of Spi- 

 nola) is kept — the same probably that is cultivated in 

 the Morea and the isles of the Archipelago'^. Honey is 

 obtained, hov.ever, 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 suspend their clus- 

 ters of thirty or forty waxen cells, resembling a bunch 

 of grapes, to a rock*" : and in South America large quan- 

 tities are collected from the nests built in trees by Tri- 

 gona Amalt/jea, and other species of this genus recently 

 separated from Apis'^; under which probably should be 

 included the Bamburos, whose honey, honest Robert 

 Knox informs us, whole towns in Ceylon go into the 

 woods to gather"^. According to Azara, one of the 

 chief articles of food of the Indians who live in the 

 woods of Paraguay is Avild 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 pro- 

 bably been attended to ages before our hive-bee, is 

 Apis fasciata of Latreille, a kind so extensively culti- 

 vated in Egypt, that Niebuhr states he fell in upon the 



■ Latr. in Humboldt and Bonpland, Eecueil iV Observationt de Zoologie, 

 &.C. (Paris, 1805) 300. 



" Hill ill Stcammerdam, i. 181, note. * Latr. iibi supr. 300. 



" Knox's Ceylon, 25. « Foy. dans VAmer. Meiid. i. 162. 



