BEE MANUAL. 27 



thorax) is of a dark colour. It was first noticed by Spinola as 

 being peculiar to all parts of Liguria. Its first or original 

 habitat was difficult to be ascertained in 1862, as during the 

 previous ten years it had been artificially distributed to many 

 pew places. Although to be found in various parts of Italy, 

 it is by no means general in that country. Besides the pro- 

 vince of Liguria, the southern slopes of the Tyrolese and Swiss 

 Alps would appear to have been its original home. 



3. The Italian bee, with yellow back plate — otherwise of the 

 same size and colour as the last. It is found in southern 

 France, Dalmatia, Banat, at Sicily, and in the Crimea, in the 

 islands and on the coast of Asia Minor, and in the Caucasus, 

 and in many of those places in common, partly with the Italian 

 (No. 2), and partly with the German bee. 



4. The Egyptian bee (Apis fasciaca of Latreille). It is nearly 

 one-third smaller than the German or Italian bee, its body 

 coloured like the latter, and the back plate also yellow ; the 

 hair of the chest and body whitish. Its proper habitat is 

 Egypt, Arabia, and Syria, but it is found, with scarcely any 

 observable difference, on the northern slopes of the Himalayas 

 and in China. It was introduced into Germany in 1863, by 

 the Acclimatisation Society of Berlin, and thence into England 

 in 1865. 



5. The specific African bee (Apis Adansonii of Latreille) is of 

 the same size and colour as the last, but differs in the greyish- 

 yellow colour of the hair on the chest and body. It is spread 

 over the whole African continent, with the exception of Algiers 

 and Egypt, from Abyssinia and Senegambia to the Cape of 

 Good Hope. 



6. The remarkable black Madagascar bee (Apis unicolor of 

 Latreille) is something smaller than the German bee, all dark 

 coloured, and its hairs black. It is confined to Madagascar 

 and the Mauritius. 



With reference to the countries of the New World, North 

 and South America, and Australasia, Dr. Gerstaecker asserts that 

 in none of them were any species of the genus Apis found until 

 they had been imported from Europe. He gives the dates of 

 importation into Florida, North America, as 1763 ; thence to 

 Kentucky in 1780, and to New York in 1793 ; into Brazil, 

 South America, in 1845, Eio Grande in 1853, and to Buenos 

 Ayres (from Chili) in 1852. Into Mexico and central America 



