GEOGRAPHY OP THE GENERA. 
89 
but there is no doubt that, so far as present information 
extends, India has the superiority. Tims Apis dorsata, 
Apis nigripennis , and Apis socialis, are cultivated in 
Bengal, the latter being also found along the Malabar 
coast and at Java. It is singular that the only instance 
of the occurrence of the very distinct genera of Apis 
and Mellipona, both honey-storing genera, yet known 
to exist indigenously in the same locality, is found in 
this island. At Pondicherry and its vicinity are found 
Apis Delessertii and Apis Indica. This latter bee is 
extensively cultivated, and its hives are perhaps the 
most largely inhabited of any of the species; the num¬ 
bers occupying a single nest being estimated at above 
eighty thousand. 
From India also, but to which no special locality is 
assigned, come Apis Perrottetii, Apis lobata, as likewise 
Apis Peronii, which is equally native to the Isle of 
Timor. The honey produced by this last bee is yellow, 
more liquid than ours, and of a- very agreeable flavour. 
Thus science dissipates the popular supposition, that 
a multiplicity of the individuals of one species of this 
insect produces the tons of wax and the myriads of 
gallons of honey that are annually consumed. 
Which of these bees first benefited the human race, 
in its primitive seat, and before the multiplication of 
mankind forced them to take divergent courses from the 
cradle of their birthrace, “to people the whole earth,” it 
is impossible to say. And it is equally impossible to con¬ 
jecture whether, like man, they by this course of migra¬ 
tion have assumed the features they now exhibit of dis¬ 
tinctly different species; yet they do not vary so conside¬ 
rably among themselves as do many other creatures that 
have come under the direct influence of man,—the chief 
