THE BEE TRIBE, %"] § 



and poison are ejected is a little below it. By mean! 

 of this mechanism it is that the sting, even when 

 parted from the body, is able to pierce and make us 

 smart, and by means of the beards being lodged 

 deep in the flesh, it is also that these insects leave 

 their stings behind them, when they are disturbed, 

 before they have had time to withdraw their spears 

 completely into the tube. 



THE BEE TRIBE. 



THE Bees, according to the generic character 

 given of them by Linnaeus, have a horny mouth, 

 with the jaws and the lip membranaceous at the 

 end. The tongue is inflected ; and they have four 

 unequal thread-shaped feelers. Their antennae are 

 short and filiform, but those of the female somewhat 

 club-shaped. The wings are fiat ; and the females 

 and neuters have pungent stings concealed in the 

 abdomen. 



The English Bees have undergone an accurate 

 investigation by the Rev. Mr. Kirby, who has dis- 

 covered no fewer than two hundred and twenty -one 

 distinct species, though fifteen years ago none of 

 our books mentioned so many as a dozen. He di- 

 vides the Linnean genus into Melitta and Apis, dis- 

 tinguishing them by their tongues: the insects of 

 the former having short, rlattish, uninfected tongues; 

 and those of the other long, cylindrical, and ii> 

 Bb 4 



