Nature has assigned the task of thus catering for man, by collecting and garnering from the recondite crypts within the blossoms of flowers, to about sixteen species congenerical with our honey-bee, but sufficiently differing. As I have before noticed, the species of this genus greatly more resemble each other in structure than perhaps do the species collocated within any other genus of insects, and whence may be inferred an exact similitude of habits, although as yet unconfirmed by direct observation. The second European species, the _Apis Ligustica_, or Ligurian bee, is rather larger, but very like ours, and inhabits the whole of the north of Italy, its occupation of that country extending from Genoa to the vicinity of Trieste; its progress further north being impeded by the Alps of Switzerland and the Tyrol. It is also found in Naples, and may likewise spread to the Morea, Turkey, and the Archipelago of Greece, and is perhaps the bee noticed by Virgil. Either this species, or possibly one distinct from ours, is that which is so extensively cultivated in Spain, although ours is found in Barbary. Another smaller kind, the _Apis fasciata_, has been cultivated in Egypt from time immemorial, and which yielded its abundant harvests for the gratification of the ancient Romans. Only five other distinct species, so far as is yet known to us, appear to occupy the vast continent of Africa,—two on its western coast at Senegal and Congo, the _A. Adansonii_ and the _A. Nigritarium_; two in Caffraria, the _A. scutellata_ and the _Apis Caffra_. That at Madagascar, and doubtless on the adjacent mainland, which has also been naturalized in the Mauritius and at Réunion, is the _Apis unicolor_, which produces the green honey mentioned above. India, however, at present appears to be the true metropolis of the genus. Further discoveries in Africa may hereafter give that vastly larger continent the predominancy; but there is no doubt that, so far as present information extends, India has the superiority. Thus _Apis dorsata_, _Apis nigripennis_, and _Apis socialis_, are cultivated in Bengal, the latter being also found along the Malabar coast and at Java. It is singular that the only instance of the occurrence of the very distinct genera of _Apis_ and _Mellipona_, both honey-storing genera, yet known to exist indigenously in the same locality, is found in this island. At Pondicherry and its vicinity are found _Apis Delessertii_ and _Apis Indica_. This latter bee is extensively cultivated, and its hives are perhaps the most largely inhabited of any of the species; the numbers occupying a single nest being estimated at above eighty thousand. From India also, but to which no special locality is assigned, come _Apis Perrottetii_, _Apis lobata_, as likewise _Apis Peronii_, which is equally native to the Isle of Timor. The honey produced by this last bee is yellow, more liquid than ours, and of a very agreeable flavour.