284 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



senses will inform us ; and that this clammy sweet substance is of 

 the vegetable kind we may learn from bees, to whom it is very 

 grateful : and we may be assured that it falls in the night, because 

 it is always first seen in warm still mornings. 1 



On chalky and sandy soils, and in the hot villages about London, 

 the thermometer has been often observed to mount as high as 83 

 or 84 ; but with us, in this hilly and woody district, I have hardly 

 ever seen it exceed 80 ; nor does it often arrive at that pitch. 

 The reason, I conclude, is, that our dense clayey soil, so much 

 shaded by trees, is not so easily heated through as those above- 

 mentioned ; and, besides, our mountains cause currents of air and 

 breezes ; and the vast effluvia from our woodlands temper and 

 moderate our heats. 



NOTE TO LETTER LXIV. 



1 White's explanation of the origin of honeydew is ingenious, but incorrect. 

 It is now ascertained to be an exudation from the aphides themselves. It is by 

 some called their excrement. 



LETTER LXV. 



THE summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous 

 one, and full of horrible phenomena ; for, besides the alarming 

 meteors and tremendous thunder-storms that affrighted and dis- 

 tressed the different counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze, 

 or smoky fog, that prevailed for many weeks in this island, and in 

 every part of Europe, and even beyond its limits, was a most extra- 

 ordinary appearance, unlike anything known within the memory 

 of man. By my journal I find that I had noticed this strange 

 occurrence from June 23rd to July 2oth inclusive, during which 

 period the wind varied to every quarter without making any alter- 

 ation in the air. The sun, at noon, looked as blank as a clouded 

 moon, and shed a rust-coloured ferruginous light on the ground, 

 and floors of rooms ; but was particularly lurid and blood-coloured 



