192 A SPRING RELISH. 



When spring pushes pretty hard many buds begin 

 to sweat as well as to glow ; they exude a brown, 

 fragrant, gummy substance that affords the honey-bee 

 her first cement and hive varnish. The hickory, the 

 horse-chestnut, the plane-tree, the poplars, are all 

 coated with this April myrrh. That of certain pop- 

 lars, like the Balm of Gilead, is the most noticeable 

 and fragrant. No spring incense more agreeable. 

 Its perfume is often upon the April breeze. I pick 

 up the bud scales of the poplars along the road, long 

 brown scales like the beaks of birds, and they leave a 

 rich gummy odor in my hand that lasts for hours. I 

 frequently detect the same odor about my hives when 

 the bees are making all snug against the rains, or 

 against the millers. When used by the bees we call 

 it propolis. Virgil refers to it as a " glue more ad- 

 hesive than bird lime and the pitch of Phrygian Ida." 

 Pliny says it is extracted from the tears of the elm, 

 the willow, and the reed. The bees often have seri- 

 ous work to detach it from their leg-baskets and make 

 it stick only where they want it to. 



The bud scales begin to drop in April, and by May- 

 day the scales have fallen from the eyes of every 

 branch in the forest. In most cases the bud has an 

 inner wrapping that does not fall so soon. In the 

 hickory this inner wrapping is like a great livid mem- 

 brane, an inch or more in length, thick, fleshy, and 

 shining. It clasps the tender leaves about as if both 

 protecting and nursing them. As the leaves develop, 

 these membranous wrappings curl back, and finally 



