92 SOME EARLY ENGLISH NATURALISTS 



I 



Beans also, which with their flowers have also black- 

 spotted leaves as well as the vetches, on which sometimes 

 they gather." ^ 



"The bees gather but one kind of flower in one 

 voyage." 



" And in this great variety this is strange that where 

 they begin they will make an end, and not meddle with 

 any flower of other sort until they have their load." 

 Here he quotes Aristotle {Hist. Anim. IX, 27). " Inso- 

 much that those which begin with the flower of the 

 vetch will not once touch the rich spotted leaf of the 

 same before they have been at home. Although when 

 they come to a flower that yieldeth both nectar and 

 ambrosia, they will use sometimes the tongue and some- 

 times the fangs, and gather them both." ^ 



These observations, which were confirmed by Eay,^ 

 appear to be the first mention of extra-floral nectaries. 



The making of mead and metheglin is carefully 

 described. In Butler's day no yeast was deliberately 

 added, though the diluted honey was often drawn into 

 a beer-barrel. He notes the formation of a "mother" 

 (impure pellicle of fermentative micro-organisms) on the 

 liquor and the proneness of the mead to pass into 

 vinegar. Mead is still made on the old plan in secluded 

 parts of England. Not long ago, in the dense beech- 

 woods of Buckinghamshire, and only thirty miles from 

 Cornhill as the crow flies, I saw a man and his wife 

 making mead just as Butler used to make it. 



Butler thinks honey much better than sugar, and 

 tells how to make with honey, marmalade of quinces, 

 marchpane, and other sweetmeats which bear delicious 

 names. 



iPp. 109-10. 2 p. 112. 



^ Cat. Plantanim circa Gantahrigiam nascentium, pp. 175-6 (1660). 



