94 
BRITISH BEES. 
The study of the geographical distribution of natural 
objects has a more universal bearing, and yields collec¬ 
tively more definite instruction and information than its 
partial treatment, when restricted to small groups, may 
at first seem to promise. This, however, is very useful, 
for it is but by the combination of such special details 
that the enlarged views are to be obtained, from which 
theories of the general laws of distribution can be de¬ 
duced. Of course, small creatures with locomotive capa¬ 
cities will not supply the positive conclusions that may 
be framed from such objects as are fixed to their abode, 
and have not the same power of diffusion, although they 
certainly appear to be generally restrained within par¬ 
ticular limits by physical conditions of the earth’s surface 
subservient to the maintenance of special forms of organic 
life; and these, once determined, would yield and de¬ 
rive reciprocal illustration. They may be merely cli¬ 
matic, but climate thus indicated cannot be estimated 
by zones, or belts, or regions; for they seem to traverse 
all these, and follow undulations not specially appreci¬ 
able except in the results they exhibit. 
Unfortunately the bees have been too imperfectly col¬ 
lected, and too irregularly registered, to admit of arriving 
at any precise conclusions with respect to them. All 
that can as yet be done will be to combine the scanty 
notices afforded by the contents of our collections, in 
the hope that their promulgation may induce collectors, 
who happen to have the often extremely rare opportunity 
of examining distant countries, to avail themselves of 
