had often seen "the leetle chaps collaring the big chaps;" evidently alluding to the massacre of the drones by the working-bees.[1]
The bees of Guadaloupe are decidedly of a different character from the European, and are probably of the genus Melipona. This constitutes, according to the system of Illiger and Latreille, a genus distinct from the genus Apis properly so called. In this last, the first articulation of the hinder tarsi is square-shaped, while in those of the other it is triangular. From some minute variation of anatomical structure, a portion of the genus Melipona has been formed into a distinct one, under the denomination of Trigones. Latreille specifies the mandibles as a distinctive character, and classes under the genus Trigones those whose mandibles are toothed, and under that of Melipona, such as have these organs smooth. Their habits also differ; the former building their nest in the open air, suspended from the branches of trees; the latter constructing their
- ↑ Since writing the above, the author has received a swarm of Bees from Jamaica, which unfortunately died on the passage. Upon the most minute examination, no difference could be perceived between these strangers and our own home-bred insects, either in the class of Workers or Males; the Queen could not be found. It must be observed, however, that besides this, which we consider identical with the domestic bee of Northern Europe, there is another species cultivated in Jamaica of a small black kind, of the habits of which we are not aware. In one of the combs of the above imported hive, was found the larva represented in Pl. VIII. with the moth into which it was metamorphosed.
