occasionally by the planters, but more generally by the negroes and people of colour. The honey is dark-coloured, and of a flavour hardly so agreeable as our own. The hives they use are small square boxes of one story. In size and colour the Jamaica bee so strongly resembles the European, as to suggest the probability that it is the same. The only circumstance known to us that raises any doubt of this identity is, that though it possesses a sting, it seldom uses it, and is apparently of a much less irritable temper than ours. As a proof of this greater gentleness, the apiary is, in many cases, situated directly in front of the dwelling-house; and an instance has come to our knowledge of one consisting of not fewer than fifty hives, belonging to a gentleman in the neighbourhood of Savannah-la-Mar, ranged close by the door, and under the front windows. Were the exotic insect as testy as ours, visiters would require some nerve to face coolly so formidable an outpost. The same gentleman has on his estate a row of logwood trees, the blossoms of which are much resorted to by the bees. Whether there is any species of the insect in this island without stings, we have not been able to ascertain precisely; it seems probable, however, there is not. A resident medical gentleman, to whom the query was put, had never heard of such; and an intelligent negro, who kept a large stock of hives, when asked whether the Jamaica bees had stings, seemed surprised at the question, and answered: "Hey! hab tings? dem ting too trong! dem hab big big ting." The same negro observed that he
