Sz Mr. CuRTis's Ohfervations on Aph'ides, 



proceffes ufcd with other faccharine juices, might be converted into 

 the choicefl fugar or fugar-candy. It is a fa<St alfo, which appears 

 worthy of noticing here, that, though the wafps are fo partial to 

 this food, the bees appear totally to dihegard it. 



In the height of fummer, when the weather is hot and dry, and 

 Afhides are mofl: abundant, the foliage of trees and plants (nnore 

 efpccially in fome years than otheis) is found covered with, and 

 nndered gloffy by, a fweet clammy fubflance, known to perfons re- 

 fident in the country by the name of hotiey-dtiv : they regard it as 

 a fweet fubftance falling from the atmofphere, as its name implies. 



Thib fweetnefs of this excrementitious fubftance, the glofly ap- 

 pearance it gave to the leaves it fell upon, and the fvvarms of infedfs 

 this matter attracted, firft led me lo imagine that the honey-dew 

 of plants was no other than this fecretion, which further obferra- 

 tion has fince fully confirmed. Others have confidered it as an ex- 

 udation proceeding from the plant itfelf. Of the former opinion 

 we find the Rev. Gilbert White, one of the latcft writers on natural 

 hifldry that has noticed this fubjccT: *. 



But that it neither falls from the atmofphere, nor iflues from the 

 plant itfelf, is eafily demonftrated. If it fell from the atmofphere, 

 it would cover every thing on which it fell indifcriminately, whereas 

 we never find it bat on certain living plants and trees. We find it 

 alfo on plants in (loves and green-houfes covered with glafs. If it 

 exuded from the plant, it would appear on all the leaves generally 



• " June 4th, 1783. Vafl honey-dews this week. The rcafon of thefe feems to be, 

 that in hot days the effluvia of flowers are drawn up by a brifk evaporation, and then in 

 the night fall down with the dews, with which they are entangled. 



'' This clammy fubflance is very grateful to bees, who gather it with great afllduity ; 

 but it is injurious to the trees on which it liappens to fall, by flopping the pores of the 

 Jeaves. The greateft quantity falls in dill, clofe weather; becaufe winds difpcrfe it, and 

 copiou'i dews dilute it, and prevent its ill effects. It falls moflly in hazy, warm weather.'' 

 See mite's Natur.ilijTs Cnliridnr. p. 14;). 



and 



