GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 81 



mellifica might have involved discrepancies, by the effects 

 constantly seen to be produced by climate, and which 

 would have shown that the standard which he sought to 

 establish could not be relied on. 



Collections exhibit about sixteen species of the genus 

 Apis, whose natural occurrence is restricted to the Old 

 World, for although the genus, especially in the species 

 A. mellifica, has been naturalized in America, and also 

 in Australasia, and in some of the Islands of the Pacific, 

 these were originally conveyed thither by Europeans. 

 Those countries possess representatives of the genus 

 with analogous attributes and functions, in two other 

 genera, which fulfil the same uses. It is remarkable 

 that the Red Indians used to note the gradual absorp- 

 tion of their territory by the White Man, through the 

 forward advance of his herald Apis mellifica. This 

 species has also been carried to India, to the Isle of 

 Timor, and to northern, western, and southern Africa, in 

 all which countries it is thoroughly naturalized, although 

 they all possess indigenous species, which are quite as, 

 or perhaps more largely, tributary to their inhabitants. 

 Observation has not hitherto confirmed the identity of the 

 manners of these exotic species with our own, owing to the 

 deficiency of observers with the enthusiasm requisite to 

 follow their peculiarities with the patience of a Reaumur, 

 a Bonnet, or a Huber. That they are quite or all but 

 similar, exclusively of differences of size, both in their 

 habits and their nests, may be inferred from their iden- 

 tity of structure. We know that they consist of three 

 kinds of individuals neuters, females, and males, and 

 that their combs are made in cakes built vertically, 

 formed of hexagonal contiguous cells, which are placed 

 bottom to bottom, and overlap each other in the same 



