1GB 
BRITISH BEES. 
Having thus cursorily skimmed the surface of the 
method I suggest, I have next to give my reasons for 
proposing it in lieu of adopting any yet extant. 
My exhibition of Kirby’s grouping, in the preceding 
section, where I treat of the scientific cultivation of 
British bees, will fully explain why I could not adopt 
that arrangement. 
Why I cannot follow Latreille’s, is, that in his last 
elaboration, in his ‘ Families Naturelles/ published in 
1825, which must be considered as his final view, he 
does not satisfactorily divide the Andrenidce , of the ge¬ 
nera of which he has made a complete jumble. With the 
Apidce in his group of Dasygasiers, he intermixes Cera- 
tina, separating it from the group of Scopulipedes, where 
it truly belongs by every characteristic, and he mingles 
also with them the two cuckoo genera Stelis and Cceli- 
oxys, which are merely parasites upon these Dasygasiers, 
and can only be associated by the structural conformity 
of the two submarginal cells to the superior wings, and 
the length of the labrum, the latter being a character of 
very secondary importance; and further, he dissevers the 
Scopulipedes in placing Panurgus at the commencement 
of the Apidce, and the rest proximate to the social bees. 
Westwood, in his modification of Latreille’s system, 
certainly divides the Andrenidce better than his master 
had done, but he does not go far enough. Besides, he 
interposes Halictus and Lasioglossum, (the latter ad¬ 
mitted as a genus merely out of courtesy to Curtis, who 
had elevated it to that rank in his f British Entomology/ 
although it is nothing more than a male Halictus), 
between Sphecocles and Andrena with Cilissa, these 
having lanceolate tongues with lacerate paraglossse, 
whereas Halictus has a very acute tongue, and its para- 
