290 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 
This compound mead ferments a considerable time, and is 
preserved like the other. Care must be taken to rinse all 
the new barrels with brandy before the mead is put in them. 
“To make the vinous mead, take one pound of honey to 
three pints of water. This is the beverage of the majority 
of the Northern people; they call it miod. The Russians, 
for example, compose their mead with honey, cherries, 
strawberries, gooseberries, and mulberries; they commence 
the fabrication by soaking these fruits for some days in clear 
water, to which they then add some virgin honey and a 
piece of bread soaked in beer. The barrels are placed in a 
room in which a heat of 18 to 25 degrees Reaumure is main- 
tained day and night. ‘The fermentation commences at the 
end of six or eight days, lasts for about six wecks, and 
ceases spontaneously. ‘The common people of the same 
country make mead with honey which is not separated 
from the wax, and with combs in which the brood still ex- 
ists; they beat these combs in warm water, leave the liquor 
to subside, strain it through a bag, boil and drink it.” 
Mr. Huish made an excellent mead in the following 
manner: ‘To thirty pounds of honey add forty-five bottles 
of water; the mixture is boiled in a great copper vessel, 
and when the liquor is reduced one half it is sufficiently 
boiled. Put two thirds of this in a new barrel well rinsed 
with brandy, and the other third into bottles closed with, 
fine linen or coarse muslin. If in this state the liquor is 
tasted, it is insipid; and, in order to render it vinous, it must 
undergo fermentation, which imparts to it all the fumes of 
wine, and from which brandy, etc., may be made. In 
order to destroy more effectually the honey taste of this 
beverage, chalk, charcoal, and the white of eggs must be 
added in the following manner: the honey, water, and the 
chalk are put into a copper vessel, the size of which should 
be one third larger than the volume of the mixture, and the 
whole must be boiled for two minutes. The charcoal is 
