172 
BRITISH BEES. 
supplies us with Ariadne’s thread. Every such combi¬ 
nation breaks up more harmonious groups, and we then 
retrace our steps, satisfied that we are on the wrong 
road. 
In some other orders of insects the cibarial apparatus 
has but little bearing upon the insect’s mode of life, for 
in many it is not used either for nutrition or in their 
economy, or so slightly so as to admit of its being con¬ 
sidered of very inferior importance, although systema- 
tists—to enhance the value of their own labours, by the 
frequent difficulty, from excessive minuteness, of its exa¬ 
mination—have usually made it a prominent feature in 
their arrangements. 
That science has not widely strayed away from the 
true succession and natural affinities by the main selec¬ 
tion of the trophi for the arrangement of the bees, seems 
partially confirmed by the gradations of form or habit 
that this method of treatment in general exhibits. A 
higher method doubtless exists, which would give form, 
number, and proportion very inferior rank in ordering 
the arrangement, but at present the clue to it has not 
been discovered. 
These questions are indeed beyond the scope of a 
work of this character, which is merely a ladder to the 
fruits of learning, and the bearing of them is only hinted 
at to indicate that there is much exercise for the intelli¬ 
gence in the study of even this small family. The mind 
that would stop in the study of nature at the knowledge 
of genera and species, can be very speedily satisfied, and 
one bright spring day’s successful collecting will furnish 
the materials for much patient and industrious occu¬ 
pation. 
In nature we find all things apparently blended in the 
