]66 .POISONOUS HONEY OF NORTH AMERICA. 



Narrative of About twenty years fince, a party of young men, folicited 



Jrorn^hofc vege- ^Y ^ e P r °fp e & of gain, moved, with a few hives of bees, 

 ubJes. from Pennfylvania into the Jerfeys. They were induced 



to believe that the favannas of this latter country were very 

 favourable to the encreafe of their bees, and, consequently, 

 to the making of honey. They, accordingly, placed their 

 hives in the midft of thefe favannas, which were finely painted 

 with the flowers of the kalmia anguftifolia. The bees encreaf- 

 ed prodigioufly, and it was evident that the principal part of 

 the honey which they made was obtained from the flowers of 

 the plant which I have juft mentioned. I cannot learn that 

 there was any thing uncommon in the appearance of the 

 honey : but all the adventurers, who eat of it, became in- 

 toxicated to a great degree. From this experiment, they 

 "were fenfible that it would not be prudent to fell their honey ; 

 but, unwilling to lofe all their labour, they made the honey 

 into the drink well known by the name metheglin, fuppofing 

 that the intoxicating quality which had refided in the honey 

 would be loft in the metheglin. In this refpecl, however, 

 they were miftaken. The drink alfo intoxicated them, after 

 which they removed their hives. 



In North-Carolina, this fpecies of kalmia and the andromeda 

 mariana are fuppofed to be the principal vegetables from 

 which the bees prepare the poifonous honey that is common 

 in that part of the United States. 

 The kalmia IJ. That the kalmia latifolia, known in the United States 



uti aa po oiy ky t j ie liames f laurel, great-laurel, wintergreen, fpoon- 

 haunch, fpoon-wood, &c. is alfo a poifon. Its leaves, in- 

 deed, are eaten, with impunity, by the deer"*, and by the 

 round-horned elk f. But they are poifonous to flieep, to 

 horned-cattle and to horfes. In the former of thefe animals, 

 they produce convulfions, foaming at the mputh, and death. 

 Many of General Bradock's horfes were deftroyed by eating 

 the leaves and the twigs of this fhrub, in the month of 

 June 1755, a few days before this unfortunate General's 

 defeat and death. In the fevere winter of the years 1790 

 and 1791, there appeared to be fuch unequivocal reafons for 

 believing that feveral perfons, in Philadelphia, had died in 



* Cervus Virginianus of Gmelin. 

 f Cervus Wapiti, mihi. 



confequence 



