153 BRITISH BEES. 



uniting discordant habits. Wasps and bees we here find 

 intermingled, and to commence study with this work 

 would much perplex the student. It can be used bene- 

 ficially only when some progress has been made in the 

 pursuit. 



The only British entomologists who have treated of 

 the bees since the time of Mr. Kirby, are Stephens, 

 Curtis, Westwood, and Smith, — the first in his elaborate 

 ' Catalogue of British Insects,^ published in 1829 ; and 

 the second in his ' Guide to the Arrangement of British 

 Insects,' published in 1837. The arrangement of the 

 family of bees in both these works is exceedingly arbi- 

 trary and without any obvious reason, either as regards 

 the consecutive order of the genera or species. This 

 originated possibly in their personal rivalry, which led 

 them to make their systems as dissimilar as they could, 

 and as unlike the true order as they could well dispose 

 them. Both arrangements are certainly far beneath 

 criticism. 



In the Synopsis of Westwood, at the end of his ' Guide 

 to the Classification of Insects,' published in 1840, and 

 in Smith's ' Catalogue of the British Bees, contained in 

 the Collections of the British Museum,' published in 

 1855, we have Latreille's distribution, with slight modi- 

 fications, to which I shall not advert at present, but 

 which I shall discuss in my next chapter, where I shall 

 introduce the arrangement I myself propose for the 

 combination of the genera of British bees. 



