88 BES. 
served together, as the Bedas of Ceylon are said to 
season their meat with honey. At any rate, as the lo- 
cust is often a great plague in Palestine, the prophet in 
eating them found his account in the general weal, and 
in the profit of the pastoral bees; the fewer locusts, 
the more flowers. Owing to its numerous wild-flowers 
and flowering shrubs, Palestine has always been a fa- 
mous country for bees. They deposit their honey in 
hollow trees as our bees do when they escape from the 
hive, and in holes in the rocks as ours do not. Ina 
tropical or semi-tropical climate bees are quite apt 
to take refuge in the rocks, but where ice and snow 
prevail, as with us, they are much safer high up in the 
trunk of a forest tree. 
The best honey is the product of the milder parts of 
the temperate zone. There are too many rank and 
poisonous plants in the tropics. Honey from certain 
districts of Turkey produces headache and vomiting, 
and that from Brazil is used chiefly as medicine. The 
honey of Mount Hymettus owes its fine quality to wild 
thyme. The best honey in Persia and in Florida is 
collected from the orange blossom. The celebrated 
honey of Narbonne in the south of France is obtained 
from a species of rosemary. In Scotland good honey 
is made from the blossoming heather. 
California honey is white and delicate and highly 
perfumed, and now takes the lead in the market. 
But honey is honey the world over; and the bee is 
the bee still. “Men may degenerate,’ says an old 
traveler, “ may forget the arts by which they acquired 
renown; manufactories may fail, and commodities be 
debased, but the sweets of the wild-flowers of the 
wilderness, the industry and natural mechanics of 
the bee, will continue without change or derogation.” 
