GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 
81 
mellifica might have involved discrepancies, by the effects 
constantly seen to be produced by climate, and which 
would have shown that the standard which he sought to 
establish could not be relied on. 
Collections exhibit about sixteen species of the genus 
Apis, whose natural occurrence is restricted to the Old 
World, for although the genus, especially in the species 
A. mellifica, has been naturalized in America, and also 
in Australasia, and in some of the Islands of the Pacific, 
these were originally conveyed thither by Europeans. 
Those countries possess representatives of the genus 
with analogous attributes and functions, in two other 
genera, which fulfil the same uses. It is remarkable 
that the Red Indians used to note the gradual absorp¬ 
tion of their territory by the White Man, through the 
forward advance of hi^ herald Apis mellifica. This 
species has also been carried to India, to the Isle of 
Timor, and to northern, western, and southern Africa, in 
all which countries it is thoroughly naturalized, although 
they all possess indigenous species, which are quite as, 
or perhaps more largely, tributary to their inhabitants. 
Observation has not hitherto confirmed the identity of the 
manners of these exotic species with our own, owing to the 
deficiency of observers with the enthusiasm requisite to 
follow their peculiarities with the patience of a Reaumur, 
a Bonnet, or a Huber. That they are quite or all but 
similar, exclusively of differences of size, both in their 
habits and their nests, may be inferred from their iden¬ 
tity of structure. We know that they consist of three 
kinds of individuals—neuters, females, and males,—and 
that their combs are made in cakes built vertically, 
formed of hexagonal contiguous cells, which are placed 
bottom to bottom, and overlap each other in the same 
G 
