There can be but little doubt that the majority of the creatures now domesticated by man were in those ancient days subjected to his sway, and to which later times have not added any, or but few fresh ones. A natural instinct possibly prompted him originally in the selection; and if the reindeer of the Laplander seem an aberration, this has happened through the contingency of climate, for in the high latitudes it inhabits, it, in its uses to man, supplies the double function performed in more southern regions by the equine and bovine tribes.
In the Greek and in the Teutonic languages, two branches of the Aryan stem, the names of the bee, melissa and biene, are clearly derived from the constructive faculty of the insect, and to which the root of the Sanskrit word madhukara, above noticed, also points. It would seem, therefore, that an earlier notice of its skill than of its honey, had suggested its name. Thus everything points to a very early acquaintance with the bee, its economy, and its properties, and this familiarity might be easily traced down in regular succession to the present times, were it desirable to recapitulate what has been so often repeated in the history of the “Honey-bee.” The facts I have gathered together above, do not seem to have been hitherto strung together, and may be suggestive of reflection, as well as affording some amusement.
The study of the geographical distribution of natural objects has a more universal bearing, and yields collectively more definite instruction and information than its partial treatment, when restricted to small groups, may at first seem to promise. This, however, is very useful, for it is but by the combination of such special details that the enlarged views are to be obtained, from which theories of the general laws of distribution can be deduced. Of course, small creatures with locomotive capacities will not supply the positive conclusions that may be framed from such objects as are fixed to their abode, and have not the same power of diffusion, although they certainly appear to be generally restrained within particular limits by physical conditions of the earth’s surface subservient to the maintenance of special forms of organic life; and these, once determined, would yield and derive reciprocal illustration. They may be merely climatic, but climate thus indicated cannot be estimated by zones, or belts, or regions; for they seem to traverse all these, and follow undulations not specially appreciable except in the results they exhibit.
Unfortunately the bees have been too imperfectly collected, and too irregularly registered, to admit of arriving at any precise conclusions with respect to them. All that can as yet be done will be to combine the scanty notices afforded by the contents of our collections, in the hope that their promulgation may induce collectors, who happen to have the often extremely rare opportunity of examining distant countries, to avail themselves of the happy chance, which may never recur, or only at long intervals.
Nor can I too impressively reiterate the importance of noting both special localities, altitude, temperature, season, flora, etc., as being all conducive to the widest instruction upon the subject. Indulging in the hope that travellers will act upon these suggestions, and thus considerably add to the value of what they may industriously collect, we must patiently await until time brings it about.
Encouraging this expectation, I have summarily collected, under their topical arrangement, the notices which precede, but which are there arranged in the generic order of the bees.
From the information we thus possess, we learn that some of our genera have an extremely wide diffusion, and occur in countries where we might have expected that other forms would have superseded them in the offices they are ordained to fulfil. None of the schemes for the geographical distribution of insects yet propounded, seem to curb the eccentricities of their range. The regions proposed by Fabricius in his ‘Philosophia Entomologica,’ they break through as readily as through the concentric circles of the cobweb when this opposes them: and all I can do is to present them as they offer themselves, with the remark that the occurrence of solitary forms in certain localities are almost sure indications that allied genera would be found at hand were they heedfully sought. It will also be observed, that in some places a parasitical genus, and its known sitos, only, have been captured there.
The following list will strongly show how totally our genera of bees are unaffected by isothermal, isotheral, or isocheimal lines drawn over the earth’s surface. Nor do botanical conditions seem to influence them beyond, the probability of their dissemination being restricted to the special diffusion of the families of such plants whose genera and species they frequent with us.
Thus, inhabiting Northern Europe we find in—