CORRESP ONBENCE. 



237 



Disease" explains so many plienomena 

 which I have noticed, tliat I am disposed 

 to accept it with avidity. Nevertheless, 

 there seem to be some contradicting facts. 

 Once, when serving with a troop of cavalry, 

 a young and apparently healthy beef was 

 brought to us, which we slaughtered, and 

 set about cooking immediately. To our 

 surprise, the flesh was tainted. To the 

 senses of taste and smell the taint could 

 not be distinguished from incipient putres- 

 cence. A careful examination failed to de- 

 tect any signs of disease in the entrails or 

 any part of the animal. The time which 

 elapsed from the killing of the beef until 

 the flesh was tasted was only a few minutes, 

 certainly not half an hour. It was in Lou- 

 isiana, in the month of April, late in the 

 evening, and in cool weather ; notwithstand- 

 ing unprejudiced stomachs and resolute 

 appetites, we were obliged to desist, and 

 make a hungry camp. 



Another instance, and much more in- 

 compatible with the bacterial theory of pu- 

 trefaction as set forth by Prof. Tyndall, I 

 find in Dr. Kane's narrative of his Arctic 

 expedition. 1 have not the work at hand 

 to refer to the page, but it is where, in 

 the early dawn of the arctic morning, he 

 watched several times for a reindeer which 

 had been indistinctly seen, in the faint light, 

 haunting a valley about a mile or two from 

 the ice-bound ship. He finally succeeded 

 in killing it, and his men ate one meal ; but 

 the carcass putrefied before they could eat 

 again. This, and the temperature of the 

 air many degrees below zero ! He goes on 

 to say that the sudden putrefaction of meat 

 in the arctics is common ; that sometimes 

 a bear or a deer would spoil before it could 

 be flayed. Can it be that there are arctic 

 bacteria? that in warmer countries there 

 are exceptional kinds which hasten putre- 

 faction at such a rate ? Can it be that the 

 cells of the flesh in certain circumstances 

 produce putrefaction, somewhat as the cells 

 of fruit produce fermentation? Or, finally, 

 is it so that, both in the case of Dr. Kane's 

 reindeer and in that of my beef, the animal 

 had eaten something which gave the flesh 

 a bad flavor, and our imagination supplied 

 much more than we supposed ? The facts 

 need some explanation, and, in the case of 

 Dr. Kane, are of such weight as should 

 challenge the general attention of observers. 



M. M. Kenney. 

 Beenham, Texas, March 25, 18T7. 



THE ORIGIN OF HONEY-DEW. 



To the Editor of the Popular Science 3Io7ithli/. 



Dear Sir : Mr. Darwin says, in his last 

 work, " Cross and Self Fertilization in the 

 Vegetable Kingdom," page 402 : " Many 

 years ago I suggested that, primarily, the 



saccharine matter in nectar was excreted as 

 a waste product of chemical changes in the 

 sap ; and that, when the excretion happened 

 to occur within the envelopes of a flower, it 

 was utilized for the important object of 

 cross-fertilization, being subsequently much 

 increased in quantity and stored in various 

 ways. This view is rendered probable by 

 the leaves of some trees excreting, under 

 certain cUmatic conditions, without the aid 

 of special glands, a saccharine fluid, often 

 called honey-dew." In the mountains of 

 North Carolina there is a species of honey- 

 dew eagerly sought for by bees, which is 

 rarely seen by persons who have written of 

 it, and is by many supposed to be a myth ; 

 but Mr. Kufus Morgan, one of the best in- 

 formed and most successful apiarians of 

 that section, who has for several years ex- 

 amined it in all its stages, is convinced that 

 it is an animal, not a vegetable exudation. 

 In reply to my questions respecting it, he 

 writes : 



" The phenomenon is not only well known 

 in my section of the State, but is of annual 

 recurrence. I have frequently studied it on 

 green leaves, generally in the month of June 

 or July, and invariably found it in close 

 vicinity to the well-known aphides, or plant- 

 lice, always below them, whence I concluded 

 they wounded the leaves and caused this 

 sap or ' honey ' to flow. But, on further 

 examination, I was fortunate enough to wit- 

 ness an actual shower of dew, in almost 

 infinitesimal globules ; and, on getting the 

 sunlight at the right angle, these particles 

 could be traced to these little creatures. 



" It was a perfectly quiet day, and they 

 seemed to eject the globules with some 

 force, making them fly clear of the leaf and 

 fall on the leaves below. Of course, such 

 small particles would be wafted away by 

 even a gentle wind, and, not being accom- 

 panied by their cause, their origin would 

 necessarily be obscure. 



" Last spring, before any leaves were 

 out, I witnessed a most extraordinary yield 

 of it on the pines. It hung in great drops, 

 and fell off like real dew when the branches 

 were shaken. At first I was mystified as 

 to its origin, as I could find no aphides, 

 which, according to my theory, ought to be 

 present; but on a closer inspection I found 

 them in abundance, not on the green, but 

 on the dark or woody part of the twig. As 

 these little insects are of the same color as 

 the substance on which they are found, they 

 are noticed only by close observers ; but 

 there is no doubt in my mind that the honey- 

 dew is an exudation from them. These in- 

 sects are also called ' ant-cows,' from the 

 fact of ants seeming to suck them, when 

 they are only gathering this sweet secretion. 

 It will be hard to convince the public of this 

 simple origin of the honey-dew, as, of the 

 hundreds with whom I conversed respecting 

 it last year, none would accept my views, 



