Instinct, as expressed in the habits, is as sure a line of separation, or means of combination, as structure, and is corroborative in tending to preserve generic conjunction in its inviolability. And, conversely, with certainty, is indicated that such-and-such a form, in the broad and most distinguishing features of its economy, is essentially the same in every climate. The habits, therefore, in whatever country the genus may occur, may be as surely affirmed of the species, from the knowledge we have of those at home, as if observation had industriously tracked them. This is especially the case in a genus, the species of which present such a peculiar identity of _structure_ as does _Apis_, whose specific differences are derived only from colour and size, and this identity is a peculiarity, so far as I have observed, rarely found in other genera, numbering even no more species, but wherein slight differences of structure often yield a subsidiary specific character, complete structural identity being almost solely incidental to the genus _Apis_.
The importance of honey and wax throughout the world, as well for the ceremonies of religion, as for the service of the arts, and for medical or domestic purposes, is attested by the vigilance, care, and assiduity with which bees are tended in every country. Although sugar, since its introduction to those northern countries which have not been favoured by nature with the cane that yields it, has superseded for ordinary uses the produce of the hive, this still continues serviceable for many purposes to which sugar cannot be applied. It is used in many ways in pharmacy, and still retains in the interior of some continents, owing to the deficiency of sugar, arising from the difficulties and expenses of transit, all its primitive uses. In the East, even in countries producing sugar in abundance, honey is extensively employed for the preservation of fruits, which in their ripe state in those hot climates would rapidly lose their fulness of flavour were they not thus protected,—honey here being esteemed superior to sugar in the circumstance of its not crystallizing by reason of the heat, and also from its applicability to this use in its natural state.