The Natural History of Selborne 471 



HONEY-DEW. 



JUNE 4, 1783. Fast honey-dews this week. The reason of 

 these seem to be, that in hot days the effluvia of flowers are 

 drawn up by 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 dew, the sky usually becomes 

 cloudy by eleven or twelve o'clock in the forenoon, and clear 

 again towards 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 after a 

 severe dry season. This present summer, 1776, yielded a 

 remarkable instance ; for, till the 3oth of May the fields were 

 burnt up and naked, and the barley not half out of the 

 ground ; but now, June loth, there is an agreeable prospect of 

 plenty. WHITE, 



