Wfstront. 199 



I thought the bouquet of the wild grape the 

 most delicious breath of June ; but now beneath 

 the lime-tree's shade, lulled by the drowsy mur- 

 mur of the bees, there seems no summer odor 

 quite so fresh and uncloying as that of the blos- 

 soming lime. No wonder the honey probed 

 from its scented cymes in the Lithuanian forests 

 rivals that of Mount Hymettus thyme and is 

 considered "the finest in the world." 



The lime, a summer home of murmurous wings, 



sings Tennyson. It is a very Mecca for the 

 bees, and rivals its near neighbor, the Japanese 

 honeysuckle, in the numbers of insects it at- 

 tracts. What a motley throng of pilgrims are 

 drawn to its nectar-laden shrine ! Can it be the 

 sweetness of its sap, which yields a sirup simi- 

 lar to the sugar-maple, that the ants and borers 

 seek beneath its rind, eventually splitting the 

 bark and destroying the tree ? I believe this is 

 peculiar to the European lime when grown in 

 this country. De Gelien observes : " Many are 

 fond of bees ; I never knew any one who loved 

 them indifferently on se passionne pour elles ! " 

 The ancients were good bee-masters, in proof of 

 which it may be cited that the Greeks had three 

 terms at least for the different qualities of propo- 

 lis or bee-gum irpoTroXis, /co/u/icoo-ir, and 



