]46 
BRITISH BEES. 
mouth, but which Fabrieius, its projector, had, singu¬ 
larly enough, failed to accomplish successfully. 
Both works were published in the same year, 1802 
(An X. of Latreille’s book), unknown to each other, 
but Mr. Kirby’s sprang into life in matured perfection, 
like the imago of the bee itself, whereas Latreille’s 
labours were progressively nursed to maturity in succes¬ 
sive publications, until they received their final elabora¬ 
tion in 1809, in the fourth volume of his ‘ Genera 
Crustaceorum et Insectorum,’ whose successive stages 
were, first, the notice appended at the end of his ' Histoire 
desFourmis’ in Paris in 1801, and then in the thirteenth 
volume of his ‘ Histoire Naturelle des Insectes,’ in 1805, 
a supplement to Sonnini’s edition of Buffon, and then in 
tile * Nouveau Dictionnaire d’Histoire Naturelle/ Even 
thus the subject was not so amply discussed, although 
applied more extensively, and made to embrace all the 
bees, exotic as well as European, at that time known, as 
it had been done in Mr. Kirby’s model work, which 
leaves nothing to be desired but the naming of his 
anonymous subdivisions, and a little more artistical skill 
in the execution of his plates. The terminology used 
by him also differs from that subsequently adopted 
through foreign influences, but which is readily reduced 
to his standard. 
The merits of the work greatly transcend these trivial 
deficiencies, for it is a “canon” as invaluable to the 
entomologist as the celebrated canon of Polycletus was, 
and the Phidian marbles still are to sculptors. Of course 
observation has greatly reduced the number of his species 
by their due association with legitimate partners, which, 
from their dissimilarity, he was compelled to separate, 
as only successive observation could prove their identity. 
