16. B0MBUS. 195 



Of the wild bees of this country the Bombi are certainly the 

 most generally known; their size and sonorous hum necessarily 

 attract every one's attention. They are known under a variety of 

 popular names : in Hampshire they are called duinbledors, in other 

 counties bumble-bees or hummel-bees, and more generally in the 

 present day humble-bees; in Scotland the brown moss-building 

 species are called foggie-bees. Their scientific name is simply an 

 imitative one, and certainly very characteristic. 



No one in early spring can have failed to notice the loud hum of 

 these insects as the females fly along hedgerows and banks in search 

 of suitable spots in which to make their nests, or when after their 

 hibernation during winter they seek the sweets of spring's earliest 

 flowers. In the month of May, when the horse-chestnut blooms, their 

 hum among the flowers is heard from the break to the close of 

 day. 



Great difficulty attends the discrimination of the species, and 

 unless examples are in a state of good preservation it is only a waste 

 of time to attempt to determine them ; but no amount of exa- 

 mination or comparison of specimens will at all times produce 

 perfectly correct results. Of some species, such as the surface- 

 builders (moss-builders as they are frequently incorrectly called), it 

 is necessary to obtain nests and to breed the insects : the males 

 are the most difficult to determine; but by an examination of the 

 organs, of generation the}^ can be assigned to their respective 

 species with undeviating correctness. During the last forty years 

 I have endeavoured to obtain an exact knowledge of our native 

 species, and by obtaining nests and collecting innumerable varie- 

 ties into which the sexes run, I hope to be able to remove some of the 

 difficulties attendant on the study of these interesting insects. In 

 some species the difference in the colouring of the males renders it 

 impossible to assign them to their legitimate partners without the 

 aid either of good descriptions or by obtaining them from the nests. 

 An insuperable difficulty is met with when old long-exposed examples, 

 having their original colouring entirely bleached and changed, are ex- 

 amined ; such may be deemed worthless and cast aside : but there is 

 another difficulty, arising from the tendency to vary even in their 

 original state of coloration. An instance of this kind is found in 

 Bombus muscorum ; in this country it varies greatly, and ten species 

 have been described from its varieties : examples from Denmark in- 

 clude a black form, which is extremely rare in England, and has only 

 been observed in small workers, but it occurs in all the sexes in the 

 north of Europe. Similar differences occur in one or two other 

 species ; B. suhterranevs and B. soroensis are examples of this : such 

 differences led to no less than forty species being described out of 

 less than half of the real number. 



The economy of the Bombi has been described in detail by numerous 

 authors ; but the majority have contented themselves with reproducing 

 that of J. P. Huber, who paid great attention to these bees, and who.se 

 observations are in most respects in accordance with my own. 

 However, I have never found the females hibernating in their old 



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