78 
BRITISH BEES. 
when we trace the geography of the next genus, Bombus. 
One species different from any of ours occurs in the 
Brazils, and others are found in the Polish Ukraine, 
and in the United States of North America. The genus 
appears extremely limited in numbers, for although 
nearly a hundred of the genus Bombus are known, Apa- 
thus, in collections, seems limited to ten. This may 
perhaps arise from want of due observation or from the 
neglect of their careful separation from that genus, but 
our own species are far from co-extensive with our native 
species of Bombus. 
The genus Bombus, although with some southern 
irrepressible propensities, it being found within the 
tropics in a few instances, is essentially a northern form, 
which is strongly indicated in its downy habiliments, 
for it is clothed in fur like the Czar in his costlv blue- 
fox mantle. In the Old World its range extends to 
Lapland, whither it is followed, as previously noticed, 
by its parasite Apathus , and in the New World to 
Greenland, where one species seems an autochthon, 
perhaps originating there when the land was still verdant, 
and grew grapes, long before the age of Madoc. Other 
species occur far away to the north of east, booming 
through the desolate wilds of Kamtchatka, having been 
found at Sitka; and their cheerful hum is heard within 
the Arctic circle, as high as Boothia Felix, thus more 
northerly than the seventieth parallel. They may, per¬ 
haps, with their music often convey to the broken¬ 
hearted and lonely exile in Siberia, the momentarily 
cheering reminiscence of joyful youth, and by this bright 
and brief interruption break the monotonous and painful 
dullness of his existence, recalling the happier days of 
yore : but the flowers of humanity, here typified by 
