NEW ARRANGEMENT OF BRITISH BEES. 
157 
ously than in the beautiful compositions of the Sanskrit 
poets Kalidasa and Yayadeva. 
The position of the family, whose English constituents 
I shall subsequently treat of, being thus fixed, I have 
next to explain the several subdivisions into which it is 
divided in the following arrangement. 
I am prompted to propose this new distribution of the 
British bees, by the manifest imperfection of the several 
arrangements of them already extant. The defects of 
these systems I shall have occasion to exhibit in refer¬ 
ence to the course I have been induced to take. 
Mr. Kirby’s keenness of observation led him to sur¬ 
mise, from the absence of polliniferous brushes upon 
the posterior legs, or other parts of the body of some, 
that there might be a class of bees analogous to the 
cuckoo, amongst the birds, who did not rear their own 
young, or undertake any of the cares of maternity; but 
that led by a peculiar instinct they deposited their eggs 
in the nests of more laborious kinds, for their young to 
be nurtured upon the provision laid up in store by the 
latter for the supply of their own progeny. This being 
merely a supposition, Mr. Kirby made no use of it in the 
distribution of his families. 
Observation has since confirmed the conjecture, and 
the fact lends material aid to the combination of the 
bees into detached groups, and which has been partially 
applied since by all systematizers. 
Conjunctively with the assistance derived from this 
circumstance, the various modes whereby pollen is col¬ 
lected and conveyed, either on the legs or on the belly, 
further facilitates the grouping of the family. Other 
structural or economical peculiarities lend their aid, and 
although the arrangement primarily emanates from the 
