[Transcriber Note: the original owner of the book, Francis Darwin, decided to paste a very large bookplate covering the first three paragraphs of the Preface. A thorough search of the Internet did not reveal any other copy of this volume.] As that kind of bee inhabits, at present, but a small strip of country, they are very rare, and a bee-cultivator who is in possession of such a hive can turn it into a real gold mine. The interest in the _Yellow Alp-bee_ is on the increase, for it has not the less value for science generally, because by breeding such bees one obtains an insight into their manners of life, and many things are made clear and brought to light of which it has not been possible to obtain a knowledge before. Only by breeding bees of this kind one can become a _bee cultivator_ in the full sense of the word. To assist the breeder to change his own black or common bees into Italian bees in the shortest and safest way, and to keep the race pure, for the purpose of a lucrative income, is the object of this little work, and I shall be glad if the contents prove a source of profit to very many friends of the bee. THE AUTHOR. [Illustration] NATURAL HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN YELLOW ALP-BEE. (_Apis helvetica._) When the Lord created the world he placed the plants in their proper situations, and creatures to those plants, which were to serve as their food. But man has in course of time transplanted plants and animals, so, that often the original country can no more be recognised. In the valleys and plains man could first commence his devastations, but the heights, and not easy accessible mountains resisted human cultivation longer; and it is there where we find nature in her original majesty. Often plants and animals will cease to thrive in a country, because they are no more in their place assigned to them by the Creator. It is different in the steep mountains, where nature is not accessible to cultivation; there we find everywhere the same plants in a certain region, as, larches, pines, Alpine-roses, gentian; also animals, as, chamois, wild goats, white hares, who do not thrive well in the plains. Here then, in the mountains, must we look for the origin of animals. For, at the time of the great deluge, all animals in the plains were, certainly, the first to perish, and those in the mountains were, in all probability, left for posterity. The yellow Italian Alp-bee is a mountain insect; it is found between two mountain chains to the right and left of Lombardy and Rhatian Alps, and comprises the whole territory of Tessir, Veltlin, and South-Graubunden. It thrives up to the height of 4,500 feet above the level of the sea, and appeal's to prefer the northern clime to the warmer, for in the south of Italy it is not found.