P^anden Heuvel on the Honey Bees of Guiana, Sfc, 79 



Art. XI. — A memoir^ on the honey-hees of America, ad- 

 dressed to the Hon. Samuel L. MitcMll, President 

 of the Lyceum cf Natural History — by J. C. Vanden 

 Heuvel, Esq. 



(Communicated for insertion in thi» Journal.) 



Sir, 



Considering the institution over which you preside as 

 ihe proper depository of such articles of interest or value in 

 any of the branches of natural history, as may be brought 

 from foreign countries by private means, I take the hberty 

 of addressing you for the purpose of contributing to their 

 cabinet, a collection of bees obtained by me, during a re- 

 cent residence in Guiana ; indulging a belief that the region 

 whence it proceeds will rather increase than diminish the 

 interest which it may excite. While most of the provinces 

 of South-America have been examined by scientific obser- 

 vers both of the old and new heniisphere, the portion lying 

 between the rivers Oronoke and Amazon has attracted but 

 little of their attention. To this neglect various causes of a 

 moral and political nature have contributed ; but impedi- 

 ments, arising from the physical aspect of the country, have 

 been alone sufficient to occasion it. Its immense forests, 

 almost impervious by their exuberant luxuriance of vegeta- 

 tion, excited by a tropical sun and humid atmosphere, are 

 rendered inaccessible during a great part of the year by the 

 torrents of rain that periodically fall, and descending from 

 the higher grounds, form vast reservoirs on the intermediate 

 Savannas ; while a still farther difficulty is presented in the 

 dreadful aspect of hordes of savages roaming therein prim- 

 itive rudeness, and in many cases with existing traits of the 

 wildest ferocity. 



In the course of my residence in the province of Derne- 

 rara, I became acquainted with a German naturalist, Dr. 

 George Schmidt, who has lived for a number of years in va- 

 rious parts of Guiana, and is now an inhabitant on the banks 



* Dated at New-York, Sept. 21gt, 1820, and read before the Lyceum, 25tU 

 ?ppt. 1820. 



