122 
BRITISH BEES. 
often elevated into species, and species thus overwhelm¬ 
ingly multiplied; and genera are frequently framed upon 
vague distinctions. 
Species are the basis of all natural science. 
A species in zoology is a combination of creatures 
which unites the sexes, and these being two, the as¬ 
sumed existence of neuters in some instances does not 
invalidate this, it comprises two individuals having in¬ 
dependent existence, but whose co-existence is indis¬ 
pensable to perpetuation, but wdiich often, from their 
great differences, no single set of scientific characters 
will bind together, yet which must exist in some undis¬ 
covered peculiarity, that individuals may be able to distin¬ 
guish their legitimate partners. The species, therefore, is 
a complete unit in its entirety, although consisting of tw r o 
distinct beings, for in the large majority of cases in 
zoology these sexes are distinct, although their conjunc¬ 
tion is, in the higher forms of life, indispensable for 
their continuance. In some of the lower forms of animal 
life they exist in union, and in the vegetable kingdom we 
perceive every possible combination and modification of 
this conjunction, and in both of these life may be per¬ 
petuated also by simpler processes. 
The species may consist of any indefinite number of 
individuals, and no law has hitherto been discovered 
which regulates the relative proportions of the sexes, 
although it is very apparent that some recondite influ¬ 
ence operates to control it. It is also extremely re¬ 
markable to observe how eccentric nature is in some 
species, and the extent to which she sometimes carries 
the variation of some particular specific type, and to 
which some species are singularly prone, and yet how 
rigidly in other cases she adheres to the particular spe- 
