334 Dr. A. Gerstacker on the Geographical Distribution 



Honey-Bee into the United States, and adds that " it is now 

 diflFused far up the Missouri, and its honey is cut out of the 

 hollow trees by Indians and whites." John Josselyn (Voyage 

 to New England, 1663, p. 120) says, "The Honey-Bees are car- 

 ried over by the English, and thrive there (in New England) 

 exceedingly;" and Benjamin Smith Barton, in a learned and im- 

 partial memoir entitled " An Inquiry into the Question whether 

 the Apis mellijica, or true Honey-Bee, is a native of America " 

 (Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc. iii. pp. 251-261, Philadelphia, 1793), 

 expresses himself decidedly in favour of the introduction of the 

 Bee from Europe, and supports his opinion by the most con- 

 vincing proofs. 



Authors have not been wanting, however, especially among 

 the North Americans, who have endeavoured to give their country 

 the credit of the original possession of so valuable an insect as 

 the Bee. The arguments of Van der Heuvel, in his memoir 

 " On American Honey-Bees " (Silliman^s Journal, iii. pp. 79- 

 85, 1821), already sufficiently refuted by Brun (Bienenzeitung, 

 1858, pp. 37-44), are evidently chiefly derived from a treatise 

 by a Dr. Belknap, published in 1792, and entitled ^ A Discourse 

 intended to commemorate the discovery of America by Christo- 

 pher Columbus.' An appendix to this latter memoir contains an 

 argument against the European origin of the North American 

 Honey-Bees, supported on the following facts: — 1. Columbus, 

 on his first return from the Antilles, when threatened with de- 

 struction in a storm, inclosed a report of his voyage in a capsule 

 of wax which he obtained at Hispaniola. 2. According to 

 Purchas, the Mexicans had to furnish a certain quantity of 

 honey yearly as tribute to their kings, even before the arrival of 

 the Spaniards. 3. Also according to Purchas, when Ferdinand 

 de Soto, in the year 1540, came to Chiaha in Florida, he found 

 amongst the stores of the Indians of that place a pot full of 

 Bees' honey. At this time no Europeans were settled in America, 

 except in Mexico and Peru ; whence the author concludes that, 

 before the arrival of Europeans, the Honey-Bee must have existed 

 as far north as Florida. With regard to the first case, as indi- 

 cated by Barton, the wax used by Columbus might have been 

 obtained from plants, such as Myrica cerifera-, but indigenous 

 Honey-Bees of the genera Trigona and Melipona existed in the 

 Antilles before their discovery by Europeans. Clavigero was 

 acquainted with five Mexican species of Honey-Bees, and we 

 now know at least sixteen ; so that the Mexicans could have had 

 no want of honey even before the arrival of Cortez. Thus both 

 the first evidences adduced by Belknap come to nothing. An 

 apparently stronger proof of the early existence of the true 

 Honey-Bee in Mexico, which has escaped both Belknap and 



