286 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 
might also be employed in the same manner, with effect. Fabricius 
cites, amongst others, Apis acrzensis and laboriosa. (See Kirby and 
Spence, Introd. vol. ii. p. 242.) 
Spinola (Insecta Liguria, vol. ii.) has published a long account of 
the bee employed in Italy for producing honey, and which he has 
named Apis mellifica ligustica. This species, which is different from 
our common hive bee, agrees with the description given of the honey 
bee by Aristotle and other writers of antiquity, inhabitants of 
Southern Europe ; whence it is evident that these authors were unac- 
quainted with the common bee of the North of Europe. Spinola 
likewise considered his species distinct from Latreille’s Egyptian 
species Apis fasciata, which is annually transported in bee boats down 
the Nile. (See Atheneum, January 1835.) 
Other exotic species of this section compose the two genera 
Melipona (having the basal joint of the posterior tarsi of a triangular 
form, two submarginal cells, and entire jaws) and Trigona, having 
toothed jaws, and a more hairy body. The insects of the latter genus, 
of which Apis amalthea Fad. is an example, build their nests at the 
tops of the branches of trees, out of the reach of monkeys, in the 
shape of a large pear: the former select cavities in rotten stumps of 
trees. The nest of a Mexican species of this genus was exhibited at 
the Linnzan Society, on January 29. 1829, built in the hollow of a log 
of wood; and which consisted of numerous irregularly-placed oval 
black-coloured cells, filled with thick amber-coloured honey, amongst 
which numerous specimens of the bees lay dead. An elaborate essay 
upon this insect, by Huber, has been published in the Memoirs of the 
Society of Geneva, vol. vill. p. 1. 1837: and an account of this or 
a similar Mexican nest, by Capt. Beechey, is contained in the third 
number of the Journal of the Royal Institution. (See also Bevan, 
chap. 23.) 
The memoir of Scabra (Noticia de diversas E’species de Abelhas que 
dao mel proprias do Brasil, o desconhecidas na Europa, folio, Lisbon, 
1799) should also be noticed. (See Bull. Sc. Nat. January 1830.*) 
Latreille has described many species of these exotic honey bees in 
the appendix to the travels of Humboldt and Bonpland; but it may 
be easily conceived how much remains unknown of the habits of the 
exotic species, when it is stated, that out of thirty-five species of 
* In the Journal of the Geographical Society (quoted in Ent. Mag. vol. v. 
p- 119.) is a memoir upon the management of bees in Cachmere. 
