152 
BRITISH BEES. 
uniting discordant habits. Wasps and bees we here find 
intermingled, and to commence study with this work 
would much perplex the student. It can be used bene¬ 
ficially only when some progress has been made in the 
pursuit. 
The only British entomologists who have treated of 
the bees since the time of Mr. Kirby, are Stephens, 
Curtis, Westwood, and Smith,—the first in his elaborate 
‘ Catalogue of British Insects/ published in 1829; and 
the second in his f Guide to the Arrangement of British 
Insects/ published in 1837. The arrangement of the 
family of bees in both these works is exceedingly arbi¬ 
trary and without any obvious reason, either as regards 
the consecutive order of the genera or species. This 
originated possibly in their personal rivalry, which led 
them to make their systems as dissimilar as they could, 
and as unlike the true order as they could well dispose 
them. Both arrangements are certainly far beneath 
criticism. 
In the'Synopsis of Westwood, at the end of his f Guide 
to the Classification of Insects/ published in 1840, and 
in Smith’s * Catalogue of the British Bees, contained in 
the Collections of the British Museum/ published in 
1855, we have Latreille’s distribution, with slight modi¬ 
fications, to which I shall not advert at present, but 
which I shall discuss in my next chapter, where I shall 
introduce the arrangement I myself propose for the 
combination of the genera of British bees. 
