VM\ I iiSITY 



FOREIGN BEES. 



BESIDES the Apis Mellifica, or common domestic 

 bee of Europe, and the genera Bombus and Apathus, 

 or humble-bees in their several species, there are 

 numerous other kinds of the social Apidae to be met 

 with in different and distant regions of the earth, of 

 which some notice may be acceptable to our readers. 

 We must premise, however, that the present state 

 of our knowledge of this portion of natural history 

 is very imperfect and unsatisfactory, drawn, as it 

 must necessarily be, from the accounts of travellers, 

 to whom it was a subject of very inferior interest, 

 and whose descriptions of the insects are generally 

 so indistinct, that it is nearly impossible to determine 

 to what families they respectively belong. But 

 before proceeding to give some account of the bees 

 domesticated in different parts of the world, which 

 in general are pretty nearly related to the Honey 

 Bee, it may not be improper to make our readers 

 acquainted with a few interesting exotic forms which 

 :laim a closer affinity to the tribe last treated of. 

 The genus EUGLOSSA, to which we shall first advert, 

 has many properties in common with the Humble 

 Bees. As in them the hinder tibiae terminate in two 

 spines, and the females are provided with a spooii- 

 shaped expansion for collecting honey. They differ 

 from Bombas and Apathus in having the labrum 



