HYMENOPTERA. 309 
America, but it soon returns to its wild state, as indeed do all 
our domestic animals when transported to the other hemisphere. 
At the Cape of Good Hope, the Hottentots seck greedily after 
the nests of wild bees, a bird called the Indicator guiding 
them in this chase. This bird comes of its own accord towards 
the savages, and is observed flitting about from tree to tree, 
making a little significant cry. They have only then to follow 
this bird-informer, for it will not be long in stopping before 
some hollow tree which contains a nest of bees. The Hottentots 
always acknowledge its services by leaving it a part of the booty. 
Fenimore Cooper, the novelist, tells us, in his work entitled 
“The Prairie,’ how the bee-hunters in America discover the 
wild hives. They place on a plank, covered with white paint 
still moist, a piece of bread covered with sugar or honey. The 
bees, in plundering this bread, get some of the paint on their 
bodies, and are then more easily tracked when they return to 
their hives. In North America they are, as it were, the har- 
bingers of civilisation. When the Indians perceive a swarm 
trying to establish themselves in the solitudes of their forests, 
they say to one another, “The white man is approaching ; he 
will soon be here.’ True pioneers of civilisation, these insects 
seem to announce to the forests and deserts of the New World 
that the reign of nature has passed away, and that now the 
social state has begun to play its part—a part that will never 
end. 
have a more hairy body, and are smaller in size. 
| Very numerous in the virgin forests, they make Mielifoaes 
The bees peculiar to South America have no 
sting: these are the Meliponas. These (Fig. 
332) are more compactly formed than our bees, 

Fig. 332.—A species of 
their nests in the hollows of trees. The wax produced by them 
is brown, and of an indifferent quality. Under thick leaves of 
wax are found cakes, with hexagonal cells, containing the males, 
| 
) 
] 
‘females, and neuters. The cells of the larve are closed by the 
workers, and the larve spin themselves a cocoon inside, All 
around the cradles are large round cells, entirely different in form 
‘from the cradles, in which the honey is stored. It is probable 
that the males, the workers, and the females, live together in 

