74 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



show such an extraordinary amount of honey-dew that 

 it is almost unpleasant to walk under the lime-trees. 

 This honey-dew is still something of a mystery. We 

 know that it is in some way produced by innumerable 

 aphides, and that the bees gather it, not for honey, but 

 for bee-food. To the old writers it was a subject of 

 much speculation. Virgil spoke of ' Aerii mellis coelestia 

 dona,' and ' Quercus sudabunt roscida mella.' Pliny and 

 other writers spoke of it positively as a falling dew 

 from heaven, while the old English writers were more 

 inclined to look on it as a sweet exudation from the 

 earth and flowers ; but of its usefulness to bee-keepers 

 they had no doubt, and Butler, the most amusing of 

 all the old writers on bees, says that — 



' The hooni-dews fall ' [his curious book is all printed 

 phonetically] ' for the most part in the morning before it bee 

 ligt ; and then sail you hav the bees up in the morning as 

 soon as they can see, making such a humming noys wer they 

 go (specially in the garden, cooming loaden horn) that, as 

 merry gossips wen they meet, a man may hear them farther 

 than see them.' — Butler, Feminin Monarchi, 1636, vi. 44. 



Of other shrubs I need only make mention of the 

 PJiiladelphus, or mock orange. This is the shrub 

 that is commonly called the syringa, and is so well 

 known for its rich, almost overpowering orange-like 

 scent, and the cucumber-like taste of the leaves. The 



