68 PASTURAGE. 



honey of Colchis or Mingrelia, where this shrub 

 is also common. 



Dr. Darwin, in his " Temple of Nature," states 

 that some plants afford a honey which is intoxi- 

 cating and poisonous to man, and that what is 

 afforded by others is so injurious to the bees them- 

 selves, that sometimes they will not collect it. 

 And Dr. Barton, in the American Philosophical 

 Transactions, has stated that, in the autumn and 

 winter of 1790, the honey collected near Phila- 

 delphia proved fatal to many, in consequence of 

 which, a minute inquiry was instituted under the 

 direction of the American Government, when it 

 was ascertained satisfactorily, that the fatal honey 

 had been chiefly extracted from the flowers of the 

 Kalmia latifolia. Still more recently, two persons 

 at New York are said to have lost their lives by 

 eating wild honey, which was supposed to have 

 been gathered from the flowers of the dwarf laurel, 

 a thriving shrub in the American woods. I shall 

 resume this subject in Chap. 24, on Bee-ma- 

 ladies. 



It appears also thst at the time of the inquiry 

 set on foot by the American Government, similar 

 fatal consequences were produced among those 

 who had eaten the common American pheasant, 

 which, on examination, was found to arise from 

 the pheasants having fed upon the leaves of the 



