Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/296

292 blanched. The species named Trigonis Amalthea, (Pl. XXVII. fig. 1.) is also found here. It constructs its nest of a form somewhat resembling a Bagpipe, eight or ten inches in diameter, and eighteen or twenty inches in length, towards the top of a tree of moderate height. (Pl. XXVII.) Within are found large cells filled with a fine reddish-coloured honey. The nest which, on a superficial view, might be mistaken for a mass of coarse earth applied when moist against the tree, cannot be procured until the tree is cut down, when the natives, after using the honey, and making a kind of mead, convert the wax into matches. In Brazil, there are many species of bees described by travellers,—doubtless including in the number those last noticed as inhabiting Guiana. One or two, however, may be mentioned, which differ in some degree from those alluded to. The first is a species surpassing all the others in size, without a sting, and building in the hollows of trees. Another is described as of a yellowish hue, and of a small size, and having their nests suspended from the branches, sometimes half an ell in length. Koster notices a species inhabiting the trunks of trees, of a black colour, and smaller than the European; their sting not formidable. The natives of Pernambuco preserve them in a part of the trunk of the tree in which they had been originally found. Their honey is very liquid, and is used as medicine rather than as food; for the small quantities obtained render the