Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/278

274 species that is found in the Grecian Archipelago. In its physical characters it nearly resembles our own hive-bee; the difference consists in the two first rings of the abdomen, (except at their posterior edge) and the base of the third, being of a pale reddish colour, instead of a deep brown. The continent of Africa, in all its widely extended regions, seems well stocked with bees, particularly towards the sea-coast. In lower Egypt their cultivation forms the employment of many of the poorer classes during a great part of the year. During the inundation of the Nile, the cultivators, unable to find pasturage for their bee-stocks in the lower province, transport them in boats to upper Egypt, resting occasionally by the way, to allow the industrious insects an opportunity to forage—and thus they reap a double harvest. The insect itself, supposed to be the A. Fasciata of Latreille, bears a considerable resemblance to that cultivated in Greece. On the western coast, where it is intersected by the Senegal, separated as this region is from the more northerly parts of Africa by mountains and deserts which form an insuperable barrier to the passage of the inferior classes of animals, we find what we are assured is another species of bees, viz., A. Adansonii. It has, however, a very near resemblance to A. Ligustica; its difference being in the two first rings of the abdomen, and the anterior half of the third, which are of a pale chestnut colour. In the neighbourhood of the Gambia, a species of small black bees is found in the woods—in all likelihood the same with those