53 BRITISH BEES. 



of waysj as the cuckoo-bees, whose foster-young starve 

 the legitimate offspring by consuming its sustenance; 

 • and personal parasites, whose abnormal and eccentric 

 structure required an Order to be established for their 

 admission. Strange creatures! more like microscopic 

 repetitions of antediluvian enormities than anything 

 within the visible creation, and to whose remarkable 

 peculiarities I shall have occasion to return. Amongst 

 the Diptera and Lepidoptera also they have their 

 enemies. 



Bees are sometimes exceedingly pleasant to capture, 

 for many of them emit the most agreeable scents ; some 

 a pungent and refreshing fragrance of lemons; others 

 the rich odour of the sweetest-scented rose ; and some a 

 powerful perfume of balsamic fragrance and vigorous in- 

 tensity. These have their set-off in others which yield 

 a most offensive smell, to which that of garlic is pleasant, 

 and assafoetida a nosegay. These odours must have some 

 purpose in their economy, but what it may be has not 

 been ascertained. 



They present very frequently remarkable disparities 

 of structure and appearance in the sexes, so much so 

 that its infrequency is rather the exception than the 

 rule, and nothing in many cases but practical experi- 

 ence can associate together the legitimate sexes. Dif- 

 ferences of size are the simplest conditions of these 

 distinctions, for they occur also in iTitiividuals of the 

 same sex. Differences of colour, consisting in increased 

 intensity in the males, are also usually easily recognized ; 

 but the relative length and structure of the antennse is 

 a more marked disparity, and the development is always 

 in favour of the male. The differences in the compound 

 eyes are conspicuous in our native genera only in the 



