and Varieties of the Honey-Bee. 279 



colorations, directly uniting our northern Bee with the Italian 

 race, and partly even show (by the pale scutellum) a tendency 

 towards the Egyptian race. Of two specimens collected by 

 Thirk, near Brussa in Asia Minor, one is dark- coloured and ap- 

 proaches the Greek form; the other, again, which is consider- 

 ably smaller and lighter in colour, resembles the Egyptian ; 

 and it is evidently to Bees resembling this that the statement of 

 Aristotle (Hist. Anim. v. 19) refers : " In Pontus there are very 

 light-coloured Bees, which make honey twice in the month ,^* 

 This statement is repeated in nearly the same words by Pliny 

 (Hist. Nat. xi. cap. 19). With the last-mentioned specimen, one 

 collected by Pallas in the Caucasus also agrees. 



The occurrence of the Honey-Bee in Arabia and Syria is 

 proved by five specimens collected in Syria and one in Arabia 

 Felix by Ehrenberg ; the latter agrees exactly with the Egyptian 

 form ; and the others approach it very nearly, only differing in 

 being a little larger. The Bee described by Brun (Bienenzeitung, 

 1858, p. 38) as occurring domesticated in Circassia and Persia 

 is probably identical with ours, although, from want of speci- 

 mens, this cannot be stated with certainty, as the light-coloiu'ed 

 race of Bees occurs under a corresponding degree of latitude, 

 but much further to the east, namely on the Himalaya ; this is 

 proved by a specimen taken there by Hoffmeister, which agrees 

 in all essential characters with those from S\Tia. Lastly, the 

 extension of the Honey-Bee to the coasts of the Pacific is proved 

 by a specimen from China, which cannot be distinguished from 

 the Egyptian form except by the dark colour of all the hair on 

 the vertex. This is the Apis cerana, Fabr. 



With regard to the northern extension of the Honey-Bee in 

 Asia, the author cites an oral statement of Ehrenberg^s, that, 

 during his journey through Siberia, he found Bees kept in hives 

 near Riddersk, in the Altai Mountains, lat. 51° N., long. 86° E. 

 The northern limit is still to be ascertained : it seems probable 

 that the Bee does not exist in the high northern latitudes of 

 Siberia, as it is not mentioned in Erichson's catalogue of the 

 Hymenoptera collected by Middendorf on the Boganida*. 



Admitting the difficulty of determining on historical grounds 

 whether the Honey-Bee is indigenous in those parts of Asia 

 where it is found, or whether it has been introduced from 

 the west, the author indicates that the forms of Bees there oc- 

 curring do not, at least, contradict the notion that they may 

 have been artificially dispersed. With the exception of Asia 

 Minor, where the Bees are evidently of a mixed race, we find, 

 over an extent of more than five thousand miles from west to 



* ReUe in den aussersten Norden und Osten Sibiriens, Zoologie, i. 

 pp. 60 et seq. 



