98 THE LIME. 



the little and the pretty. When the bees have 

 access to large numbers of limes, so that the storage 

 in their waxen cities has been derived principally 

 from this source, the flavour and quality of the 

 honey are particularly good, and quite as marked as 

 when these creatures feed extensively upon the 

 heather, or upon aromatic plants of the Labiate 

 kind, to which latter is owing the peculiar flavour 

 of the honey of Narbonne. In some parts of Lithu- 

 ania there are forests composed almost exclusively 

 of lime-trees. The bees gather their harvest with 

 rapidity, and the combs being almost immediately 

 removed from the hives, the flavour is preserved 

 pure, and the inhabitants realize large sums by the 

 sale of what the insects have so assiduously col- 

 lected. 



The whole subject of the production of honey by 

 flowers is very pleasing. There are few probably 

 by which a less or greater quantity is not yielded, 

 since the presence of this substance appears to serve 

 as an attraction to many little creatures of tender 

 wing. Rifling the blossom, and rambling about in 

 it, they help to convey the pollen from the stamens 

 to the pistil, and thus unconsciously help forward 

 the great function of reproduction. How beautiful 

 are these various steps in the exquisitely-adjusted 

 economies of nature ! The earth, shone on to-day 

 by the self-same stars which delighted the eyes of 

 the first members of mankind, is enriched also with 



