52 
BRITISH BEES. 
of ways, as tlie 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 Lepicloptera 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 individuals 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 antennae 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 
