194 
BRITISH BEES. 
being parasitical, for many bees, for instance Cerotina, 
Herindes, etc., nidificate in bramble sticks, and they 
may have superseded the nidificating bee by depositing 
their ova in the nests of the latter ; although it certainly 
is a remarkable circumstance that some one of these 
bees has never escaped destruction in the several instances 
in which these have been thus bred. It is also said that 
their nests contain a semi-liquid honey. The'fact of the 
larva of a wild bee being nurtured upon any other pro- 
vender than a mixture of pollen and honey, does not 
elsewhere occur, and it would seem to contradict the 
function this family is ordained to exercise, by conveying 
pollen from flower to flower, and which besides, in every 
other case, constitutes the nutritive aliment of the larva. 
Tut then, again, the structure of its tongue, which re¬ 
sembles somewhat that of Colletes in lateral expansion, 
and with which it would be provided for some analogous 
purpose, seems to contradict parasitical habits, although 
St. Fargeau asserts that it is parasitical upon this genus, 
and if so, although it has not been observed in this 
country, the analogous structure of the tongue might be 
perhaps explained. 
But notwithstanding this deficiency of positive cha¬ 
racters, from the absence of pollinigerous organs, nature 
is not to be controlled by laws framed by us upon the 
imperfect induction of incomplete facts, for if it be in¬ 
contestable that this genus is constructive and not pa¬ 
rasitical, the riddle presented by this structure of its 
tongue is at once solved, for without any affinity beyond 
that single peculiarity with Colletes, it presents an ano¬ 
maly of organization which cannot be accounted for but 
by its application to a use similar to what we find it 
applied in that extraordinary genus,—a use that could 
