four very distinct varieties, each of which forms
its nest on a different principle. The largest and most extensive
honey-maker is the "bambera". This is nearly as large as a hornet, and
it forms its nest upon the bough of a tree, from which it lines like a
Cheshire cheese, being about the same thickness, but five or six inches
greater in diameter. The honey of this bee is not so much esteemed as
that from the smaller varieties, as the flavor partakes too strongly of
the particular flower which the bee has frequented; thus in different
seasons the honey varies in flavor, and is sometimes so highly aperient
that it must be used with much caution. This property is of course
derived from the flower which the bee prefers at that particular
season. The wax of the comb is the purest and whitest of any kind
produced in Ceylon. So partial are these bees to particular flowers
that they migrate from place to place at different periods in quest of
flowers which are then in bloom.

This is a very wonderful and inexplicable arrangement of Nature, when
it is considered that some flowers which particularly attract these
migrations only blossom once in "seven years." This is the case at
Newera Ellia, where the nillho blossom induces such a general rush of
this particular bee to the district that the jungles are swarming with
them in every direction, although during the six preceding years hardly
a bee of the kind is to be met with.

There are many varieties of the nillho. These vary from a tender dwarf
plant to the tall and heavy stern of the common nillho, which is nearly
as thick as a man's arm and about twenty feet high.

The next honey-maker is very similar in size and appearance to our
common hive bee in England. This variety forms its nest in hollow
trees and in holes in rocks. Another bee, similar in appearance, but
not more than half the size, suspends a most delicate comb to the twigs
of a tree. This nest is no larger than an orange, but the honey of the
two latter varieties is of the finest quality, and quite equal in
flavor to the famed "miel vert" of the Isle de Burbon, although it has
not the delicate green tint which is so much esteemed in the latter.

The last of the Ceylon bees is the most tiny, although an equally
industrious workman. He is a little smaller than our common house-fly,
and he builds his diminutive nest in the hollow of a tree, where the
entrance to his mansion is a hole no larger than would