Vanden Heuvel on the Honey Bees of Guiana, ^c. 83 



possessed of the least experience in the country. Even the 

 fewness of its numbers may fairly be questioned ; at least if 

 applied in any other than a comparative sense. In all parts 

 of this portion of the continent, to the remotest settlements^ 

 honey Bees are found in a wild and unappropriated state in 

 every wood. Of these there are several varieties which 

 have never been domesticated, and therefore could never 

 have been brought from foreign regions. If neither the 

 climate, nor the fruits of the soil are entirely uncongenial 

 with the habits of these species, no reason exists for the 

 presumption that those which are domesticated, are not also 

 indigenous. To facts of which we have daily evidence, it 

 is superfluous to produce written authorities ; but allow me 

 Sir, to observe, that Carver, in his Travels in North-West- 

 America, describes the Bee, in connection with the Beaver, 

 &c. " as one of those productions almost peculiar to Ameri- 

 ca," an opinion very extraordinary, when contrasted witli 

 the hypothesis of Raynal, and which could have arisen only 

 from his observation of such numbers of this insect, as sur- 

 passed in his belief the swarms of the old world. Their 

 mode of depositing their honey is indeed peculiar, and oc- 

 casioned solely by local causes. Instead of concealing it in 

 the hollow of a tree, or suspending their hives from the 

 branches, they place it in a hole made in the ground, their 

 object being to preserve it from the attacks of tigers. With 

 reference to the southern portion of North-America, I take 

 the liberty also, of presenting an anecdote I accidentally met 

 with, illustrative of the existence of Bees in that quarter. 

 In Roberts' History of Florida, it is mentioned that in the 

 Expedition of Ferdinand De Soto, for the conquest of that 

 territory in 1539, his army, after a fatiguing march of some 

 days, besides receiving provisions from the Indians, were 

 agreeably surprized with the discovery of wild honey in the 

 woods, which, considering the date of the expedition, must 

 have proceeded from Bees indigenous to the country. 



Their paucity in North-America, admitting it to exist> 

 might have been accounted for by Raynal, without hazard- 

 ing the idea of their transmigration from the other continent^ 

 by reflecting that the nature of the climate was less favoura- 

 ble to them, than that of more southern regions ; as in Eu- 

 rope, though they are cultivated to some extent in the north- 

 ern parts, they are more the objects of the^ attention of man; 



