310 CURIOUS OR USEFUL PLANTS. 



dom. And it has been usually supposed that it consists of the pol- 

 len which the bees visibly collect on their thighs, and afterwards 

 elaborate in some unknown way. The great difference, however, 

 between wax and this matter which the bees collect has been long 

 remarked. When examined by the microscope, this little mass of 

 pollen is obviously composed of a number of hard grains compressed 

 together ; and if it be laid on a hot plate, it does not melt as wax 

 would do, but smokes, dries, and is reduced to a coal ; and, if kin- 

 dled, burns without melting. Some late and very curious experi- 

 ments, however, of M. Huber, one of the most celebrated apiarists 

 in Europe, have shewn that the pollen has no share whatever in the 

 formation of wax; but that this substance is produced indiscrimi- 

 nately from honey, sugar, or any other saccharine matter, which 

 serves as food for the bees. The details of these experiments would 

 occupy too much space : it is sufficient to mention that they were 

 performed by confining separate swarms of bees within their hives, and 

 feeding one hive with honey, another with muscovado sugar, another 

 with treacle, another with refined sugar ; in all of which abundance 

 of wax was produced; and, on the other hand, by feeding another 

 hive with only pollen and fruits, no wax whatever was formed, 

 though the bees remained a week in their confinement. Other ob- 

 servations and experiments by this ingenious naturalist still further 

 explain this subject, by shewing what is the real use of the pollen ; 

 namely, to afford sustenance for the larve of the bee the moment it 

 is hatched. 



There is a vegetable wax which has lately been discovered in the 

 Brazils, though the tree from which it is produced is not accurately 

 known, that bids fair to prove an article of highly useful and exten- 

 sive commerce between that country and our own. The only spe- 

 cimen of it which has been received in England, was transmitted to 

 Lord Grenville from Rio de Janeiro, by the Comte de Galveas, as a 

 new article lately brought to that city, from the northernmost parts 

 of the Brazilian dominions, the capiteneas of Rio Grande and Seara, 

 between the latitudes of three and seven degrees north : it is said to 

 be the production of a tree of slow growth, called by the natives 

 carnauba, which also produces a gum used as food for men, and 

 another substance employed for fattening poultry. 



When the Comte wrote to Lord Grenville in 1809, orders had 

 been sent to the governors of the districts where it grows, requiring 



