All these facts take us far back in the history of the bee. But the indication of a higher antiquity of its domestication may be traced in the Sanskrit, wherein _ma_ signifies honey, _madhupa_, honey-drinker, and _madhukara_, honey-maker, the root of the latter signifying “to build.” _Madhu_ has clearly the signification of our _mead_, thence we may thus trace an affinity, pointing to those early times, for the origin of a drink still in use amongst us. In Chinese _mih_, or _mat_ (in different dialects) signifies honey, thus clearly showing a second derivation, in this Turonian term, from a more primitive language whence both flowed. In the Shemitic branch nothing analogous is to be traced. But this double convergence to a more distant point veiled in the obscurity of time, necessarily takes the domestication of the bee back also to that anterior period now only dimly traceable. 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. -------