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CHAPTER VII. 



BEIEF NOTICE OF THE SCIENTIFIC CULTIVATION 

 OF BRITISH BEES. 



WITH the great JOHN RAY dawns the scientific cultiva- 

 tion of British bees. Before his time, the only entomo- 

 logical work which had been published in England was 

 Dr. Mouffett's ' Theatrum Insectorum/ In this work 

 there is an ample account of the domestic bee, with 

 gleanings from many sources of some of its habits and 

 economy, but there is no notice of any insects, excepting 

 some species of the genus Bombus, which may be at all 

 consorted with the social bee by affinities of structure 

 or identity of function. 



In Ray's correspondence with his disciples and friends, 

 we have straggling observations upon the habits of a few 

 wild -bees, especially some jotted down by his diligent 

 pupil, the distinguished Francis Willughby. It is in 

 Ray's posthumous l Historia Insectorum/ published in 

 1710, at the instance of the Royal Society, that we first 

 find collected together all that had been previously 

 known of ' British Bees/ In that work he describes 

 them systematically. He there arranges the bees into 

 Apis and Bombylius, which may be regarded almost as 

 genera. 



