101 



CHAPTER IV. 



NOTICE OF THE MORE CONSPICUOUS FOREIGN 

 GENERA OF BEES. 



SEEING thus the wide and almost universal distribution 

 of many of our own genera, we might be induced to ask 

 whether this could not suffice, by the impetus which more 

 genial climates give to the multiplication of individuals, 

 to meet all the exigencies of the most favoured regions of 

 the vegetable kingdom. This is not so. There seems 

 scarcely a limit to the exuberance wherein nature revels 

 in the production of variations of form. The splendour, 

 elegance, and infinite variety which she displays in her 

 floral beauties in the most luxuriant climates, find rivalry 

 as well in the multitude as in the magnificence of the 

 insects which she has allied with them as the indis- 

 pensable promoters of their perpetuation. How other- 

 wise than through some of the insects we shall mention 

 could tropical Labiatte and the tubulated flowers of the 

 Rubiacea, etc. be fertilized ? The reader will therefore, 

 I trust, welcome an acquaintance with some of the most 

 conspicuous of the group of bees produced by tropical 

 countries, although the main object of this treatise is to 

 exhibit the attractions of " our native bees." 



I will but superficially and rapidly glance at the 



