METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 395 



a brisk evaporation, and then, in the night, fall down 

 with the dews, with which they are entangled *. 



This clammy substance is very grateful to bees, 

 who gather it with great assiduity ; but it is injurious 

 to the trees on which it happens to fall, by stopping 

 the pores of the leaves. The greatest quantity falls 

 in still, close weather ; because winds disperse it, and 

 copious dews dilute it, and prevent its ill effects. It 

 falls mostly in hazy, warm weather. WHITE. 



MORNING CLOUDS. After a bright night and vast 

 dews, the sky usually becomes cloudy by eleven or 

 twelve o'clock in the forenoon, and clear again to- 

 wards the decline of the day. The reason seems to 

 be, that the dew drawn up by evaporation occasions 

 the clouds ; which, towards evening, being no longer 

 rendered buoyant by the warmth of the sun, melt 

 away, and fall down again in dews. If clouds are 

 watched in a still, warm evening, they will be seen to 

 melt away, and disappear. WHITE. 



DRIPPING WEATHER AFTER DROUGHT. No one 

 that has not attended to such matters, and taken down 

 remarks, can be aware how much ten days dripping 

 weather will influence the growth of grass or corn 

 afte,r a severe dry season. This present summer, 

 1776, yielded a remarkable instance; for, till the 

 30th of May, the fields were burnt up and naked, and 

 the barley not half out of the ground; but now, 

 June 10, there is an agreeable prospect of plenty. 



WHITE. 



* It will hardly be deemed a discredit to an observer so pa- 

 tient, so accurate, and so faithful, as Mr. White, to mention, that 

 his conjecture concerning the origin of honey-dew is erroneous ; 

 the subject has been elucidated by the observations of Mr. Wil- 

 liam Curtis, who has discovered it to be the " excrement of the 

 aphides." See Transact, of the Linnaan Society, vol. vi. No. 4. 



MITFORD. 



