88 
BRITISH BEES. 
species congenerical with our honey-bee, hut sufficiently 
differing. As I have before noticed, the species of this 
genus greatly more resemble each other in structure 
than perhaps do the species collocated within any other 
genus of insects, and whence may be inferred an exact 
similitude of habits, although as yet unconfirmed by 
direct observation. 
The second European species, the Apis Liyustica, or 
Ligurian bee, is rather larger, but very like ours, and 
inhabits the whole of the north of Italy, its occupation 
of that country extending from Genoa to the vicinity of 
Trieste; its progress further north being impeded by the 
Alps of Switzerland and the Tyrol. It is also found in 
Naples, and may likewise spread to the Morea, Turkey, 
and the Archipelago of Greece, and is perhaps the bee 
noticed by Virgil. Either this species, or possibly one 
distinct from ours, is that which is so extensive^ culti¬ 
vated in Spain, although ours is found in Barbary. 
Another smaller kind, the Apis fasciata, has been 
cultivated in Egypt from time immemorial, and which 
yielded its abundant harvests for the gratification of the 
ancient Romans. Only five other distinct species, so far 
as is yet known to us, appear to occupy the vast conti¬ 
nent of Africa,—two on its western coast at Senegal and 
Congo, the A. Adansonii and the A. Nigritarium; two 
in Caffraria, the A. scutellata and the Apis Caffra. That 
at Madagascar, and doubtless on the adjacent mainland, 
which has also been naturalized in the Mauritius and at 
Reunion, is the Apis unicolor , which produces the green 
honey mentioned above. 
India, however, at present appears to be the true metro¬ 
polis of the genus. Further discoveries in Africa may here¬ 
after give that vastly larger continent the predominancy ; 
