101 
CHAPTER IV. 
NOTICE OF THE MORE CONSPICUOUS FOREIGN 
GENERA OF BEES. 
Seeing thus the wide and almost universal distribution 
of many of our own genera, we might be induced to ask 
whether this could not suffice, by the impetus which more 
genial climates give to the multiplication of individuals, 
to meet all the exigencies of the most favoured regions of 
the vegetable kingdom. This is not so. There seems 
scarcely a limit to the exuberance wherein nature revels 
in the production of variations of form. The splendour, 
elegance, and infinite variety which she displays in her 
floral beauties in the most luxuriant climates, find rivalry 
as well in the multitude as in the magnificence of the 
insects which she has allied with them as the indis¬ 
pensable promoters of their perpetuation. How other¬ 
wise than through some of the insects w r e shall mention 
could tropical Labiata and the tubulated flowers of the 
Rubiacece, etc. be fertilized ? The reader will therefore, 
I trust, welcome an acquaintance with some of the most 
conspicuous of the group of bees produced by tropical 
countries, although the main object of this treatise is to 
exhibit the attractions of “ our native bees.” 
I will but superficially and rapidly glance at the 
