SKETCH OF THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA OF BRITISH BEES.
IN giving a broad sketch of the geography of the genera of bees which are native to our islands, but whose local distribution I shall reserve for notice in the account of the genera themselves, I must regret at the outset the lack of materials for its satisfactory treatment.
There are but very few exceptions to the dearth of assiduity in this direction; a very favourable one is that of the son of the late venerable hymenopterologist, the Count le Pelletier de St. Fargeau, who, at his military post as an officer of the French army in Algeria, stationed at Oran, collected energetically for his father in that district, and where, in one of his collecting excursions, he was severely wounded by a musket-ball. Another equally favourable exception is that of Sydney Smith Saunders, Esq., residing at Prevesa, in Albania, who has strenuously and perseveringly collected in that country. Here and there we can point to something having been done in Upper India, in the vicinity of Poonah, at Pondicherry, in Java, in some limited localities of China, and to some extent in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, but nothing of any magnitude. There is much hope that a great deal has been done in Ceylon by Mr. Thwaites, who, when resident at Bristol, was a most ardent and successful hymenopterologist.
The Egyptian _Hymenoptera_ have been extensively and admirably figured by Savigny, in the Imperial superb work published under the auspices of Napoleon I., but to these, unfortunately, no descriptive text was published, and they are therefore as useless to science as if they had not been figured. But those collected by Ehrenberg, and figured by Klug, in the ‘Symbolæ Physicæ,’ exhibit how rich in variety is that remarkable region. These figures may be called the _ne plus ultra_ of entomological artistic skill.
Unfortunately, this Order has been sadly neglected for the sake of the less troublesome _Coleoptera_, and the more conspicuous _Lepidoptera_. This is plainly perceptible from the paucity of species recorded as having been once in the Count Dejean’s collection, where we might have expected to have obtained a rich view of the _Hymenoptera_ of Spain; as also in those of other French collectors, who have had rare but neglected opportunities for the purpose. It is true M. Brullé has done a good deal in Greece. We are, as yet, in comparative ignorance, from the same cause of neglect, of the _Hymenoptera_ of Italy, excepting something that has been done by the Marquis Spinola, in Liguria, and by Rossi, in Tuscany. A little has been contributed towards that of Carniola, but we are almost ignorant of the _Hymenoptera_ of Sicily, which, from various causes, are likely to be very peculiar. Mr. Swainson’s collection of them, although not numerous, were neglected until they became unintelligible. The only European countries that have been tolerably gleaned are Germany, Sweden, a part of Russia, and even Finland. It is impossible for any entomologist to examine every locality for himself, he must, in great measure, depend on the labours of others; and, of course, I can only speak of the collections which are accessible to me, or which are described in monographs, or have been named in lists that have been published. Doubtless the Museum of Berlin, so long under the administration of a lover of the Order, Dr. Klug, would present a large contribution to our knowledge of the distribution of the forms, did a list of its riches exist. Such a list of the _menoptera_ of Portugal, contained in Count Hoffmansegg’s collection, was published many years ago in Illiger’s ‘Magazin der Insectenkunde.’