286 NATURAL HISTORY. 



hath known in the beginning of May honeycombs 

 empty of honey ; and within a fortnight, when the 

 sweet dews fall, filled like a cellar. It is reported 

 also by some of the ancients, that there is a tree 

 called occhus, in the valleys of Hyrcania, that dis- 

 tilleth honey in the mornings. It is not unlike that 

 the sap and tears of some trees may be sweet. It 

 may be also, that some sweet juices, fit for many 

 uses, may be concocted out of fruits, to the thick 

 ness of honey, or perhaps of sugar ; the likeliest are 

 raisins of the sun, figs, and currants ; the means may 

 be inquired. 



613. The ancients report of a tree by the Per 

 sian sea, upon the shore sands, which is nourished 

 with the salt water ; and when the tide ebbeth, you 

 shall see the roots as it were bare without bark, 

 being as it seemeth corroded by the salt, and grasp 

 ing the sands like a crab ; which nevertheless beareth 

 a fruit. It were good to try some hard trees, as a 

 service-tree, or fir-tree, by setting them within the 

 sands. 



614. There be of plants which they use for gar 

 ments, these that follow : hemp, flax, cotton, nettles, 

 whereof they make nettle-cloth, sericum, which is a 

 growing silk ; they make also cables of the bark of 

 lime trees. It is the stalk that maketh the filaceous 

 matter commonly ; and sometimes the down that 

 groweth above, 



615. They have in some countries, a plant of a 

 rosy colour, which shutteth in the night, openeth in 

 the morning, and openeth wide at noon ; which the 



