Thus science dissipates the popular supposition, that a multiplicity of the individuals of one species of this insect produces the tons of wax and the myriads of gallons of honey that are annually consumed. Which of these bees first benefited the human race, in its primitive seat, and before the multiplication of mankind forced them to take divergent courses from the cradle of their birthrace, “to people the whole earth,” it is impossible to say. And it is equally impossible to conjecture whether, like man, they by this course of migration have assumed the features they now exhibit of distinctly different species; yet they do not vary so considerably among themselves as do many other creatures that have come under the direct influence of man,—the chief differences consisting in the comparatively slight distinctions of colour and of size, but which are sufficiently marked to constitute them good species. The earliest manuscript extant, which is the Medical papyrus, now in the Royal Collection at Berlin, and of which Brugsch[2] has given a facsimile and a translation, dates from the nineteenth or twentieth Egyptian dynasty, accordingly from the reign of Ramses II., and thus goes back to the fourteenth century before our era. But a portion of this papyrus indicates a much higher antiquity, extending as far back as the period of the sovereigns who built the Pyramids, consequently to the very earliest period of the history of the world. Footnote 2: ‘Recueil de Monuments Égyptiens dessinés sur les lieux.’ In Three Parts. 4to. Leipzig, 1862. It was one of the medical treatises contained within the Temple of Ptah, at Memphis, and which the Egyptian physicians were required to use in the practice of their profession, and if they neglected such use, they became responsible for the death of such patients who succumbed under their treatment, it being attributed to their contravening the sacred prescriptions. This pharmacopœia enumerates amongst its many ingredients, honey, wine, and milk; we have thus extremely early positive evidence of the cultivation of bees. That they had been domesticated for use in those remote times, is further shown by the fact mentioned by Sir Gardiner Wilkinson of a hive being represented upon an ancient tomb at Thebes.