222 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



profit of their bees than of corn^ ; and in Spain thamumber of bee-hives 

 is said to be incredible ; a single parish priest was known to possess 5000.^ 



Tlie domesticated or hive-bee, to which we are indebted for this article, 

 is the same according to Latreille in every part of Europe, except in 

 some districts of Italy, where a different species (^Apis ligustica of Spinola) 

 is kept — the same probably that is cultivated in the Morea and the isles 

 of the Archipelago.^ Honey is obtained, however, from many other 

 species both wild and domestic. What is called rock honey in some 

 parts of America, which is as clear as water and very thin, is the produce 

 of wild bees, wliich suspend their clusters of thirty or forty waxen cells, 

 resembling a bunch of grapes, to a rock^: and in South America large 

 quantities are collected from the nests built in trees by Trigona Amalthea, 

 and other species of this genus recently separated from Apis^; under 

 which probably should be included the Bamhuros, whose honey, honest 

 Robert Knox informs us, whole towns in Ceylon go into the woods to 

 gatiier.'' According to Azara, one of the chief articles of food of the 

 Indians who live in the woods of Paraguay is wild honey.'' Captain 

 Green observes that, in the island of Bourbon, where he was stationed 

 for some time, there is a bee which produces a kind of honey much 

 esteemed there. It is quite of a green color, of the consistency of oil, 

 and to the usual sweetness of honey superadds a certain fragrance. It is 

 called green honey, and is exported to India, where it bears a high price.® 

 One of the species that has probably been attended to ages before our 

 hive-bee, is Apis fasciata of Latreille, a kind so extensively cultivated in 

 Egypt, that Niebuhr states he fell in upon the Nile, between Cairo and 

 Damietta, with a convoy of 4000 hives, which were transporting from a 

 region where the season for flowers had passed, to one where the spring 

 was later.^ Columella says that the Greeks in like manner sent their bee- 

 hives every year from Achaia into Attica ; and a similar custom is not 

 unknown in Italy, and even in this country in the neighborhood of heaths. 

 In Madagascar, according to Latreille, the inhabitants have domesticated 

 Apis unicolor ; A. indica is cultivated in India at Pondicherry and in 

 Bengal ; A. Adansonii Latr. at SenegaP"^ ; and Fabricius thinks that A. 

 ncraensis (^Ceniris Syst. Piez.) lahoriosa, and others in the East and 

 West Indies, might be domesticated with greater advantage than even 

 A. mellifica?^ 



Here also must be mentioned the manna used as an agreeable food in 

 the East, which, though not directly produced by insects, is caused to 

 flow from the Tamarix mannifcra by the punctures of a small species of 

 Coccus.^- 



The last, and doubtless the most valuable, product of insects to which 

 I have to advert is Silk. To estimate justly the importance of this article, 

 it is not sufficient to view it as an appendage of luxury unrivalled for rich- 



' Communications to the Board of Agricnlt. vii. 286. * Mills on Bees, 77. 



3 Latr. in Humboldt and Bonpland," iitcKCJ/ d'Observ. de Zoologie, A:c. (Paris. 1805). 300. 



* Hill in Sit'ammerdam,'\. 181. note. ' Latr. vbi supr. 300. 

 ^ Knf)x's Cnjion, 25. ' Voy. dans VAmer. Merid. i. 162. 



* M. Latroilie appears to have described this bee under the name of Apis unicolor. Mim. 

 sur hs Abeilles, 8. 39. 



9 Lair. 7/(5/. Nat. xiv. 20. 



"> Latr. in Humboldt and Bonpland, Jiecueil, &c. 30?. 



" Vorlesungen, 324. '* Burmeister, Manual of Ent. 561. 



