The many kinds of knowledge which the study subserves, and the recreation and pleasure each affords, are a sufficient reply to the sneering _Cui bono?_ of its detractors, who, when they urge that it occupies time which might be more profitably employed, present themselves but as the priests of the Fetish of the age, and may be told that we use it only as a relaxation to necessary worldly toils. When pursued, in cases where it can be so, in unmolested security, is there a more salutary pursuit than that which inculcates the high veneration and love which the study of nature should inspire towards the Great Parent of all? What can compete with it in other studies? The investigation of the works of the Almighty lead directly to the steps of the altar of religion, and there we find the study of the Works confirmed by the precepts of the Word, both inculcating humble reverence and fervent love. Thus pursued, is it not a reply to every cavil? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VII BRIEF NOTICE OF THE SCIENTIFIC CULTIVATION OF BRITISH BEES. WITH the great JOHN RAY dawns the scientific cultivation of British bees. Before his time, the only entomological work which had been published in England was Dr. Mouffett’s ‘Theatrum Insectorum.’ In this work there is an ample account of the domestic bee, with gleanings from many sources of some of its habits and economy, but there is no notice of any insects, excepting some species of the genus _Bombus_, which may be at all consorted with the social bee by affinities of structure or identity of function. In Ray’s correspondence with his disciples and friends, we have straggling observations upon the habits of a few wild bees, especially some jotted down by his diligent pupil, the distinguished Francis Willughby. It is in Ray’s posthumous ‘Historia Insectorum,’ published in 1710, at the instance of the Royal Society, that we first find collected together all that had been previously known of ‘British Bees.’ In that work he describes them systematically. He there arranges the bees into _Apis_ and _Bombylius_, which may be regarded almost as genera. He divides _Apis_ into what may be considered as two sections, _Apis domestica_ forming the first, and the second containing his _Apes silvestres_, or wild bees. Nine of these are described and numbered consecutively, which are followed by eleven descriptions unnumbered, some of the latter having been supplied to him by Francis Willughby, whose initials are attached to these, and amongst which we find the description of the willow bee, subsequently, from this cause, named by Kirby, from its original describer, and now universally known as _Megachile Willughbiella_.