580 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I67I. 



tingham trees I wounded in the trunk, and they stood against a brick wall, and 

 the wounds were on the side next it; and besides had horse dung stopped in all 

 of them for some reasons, which things undoubtedly defended them much 

 from the air and winds, and kept the wounds still green and open ; whereas the 

 tops of these maple twigs, spoken of in the last experiment, were exposed in an 

 open hedge to the air and winds. 



Concerning the bleeding of poles and entire branches held perpendicular, Mr. 

 Willoughby is in the right, and some experiments in my last to you of March 

 17 confirm it. Yet it is very true what I observed, though the cause I did not 

 then well take notice of, when I first made the experiment and sent you an ac- 

 count of it. For I held the twigs which I had cut off aslant, joining and hold- 

 ing up the cuts together in my left hand, that I might the better observe which 

 part or cut would bleed or not bleed the faster, and because I found that the cut 

 of the separated twig did not in that posture (holding it upwards, as I said, for 

 the advantage of my eye) bleed at all, when as the cut of the branch remaining 

 to the tree did freely bleed; I therefore inverted the separated twig, and held it 

 perpendicular with the cut end downward, and found that the little they were 

 exposed to the air in an upright posture, had so very much checked the motion 

 of the sap, that I concluded they would not bleed at all, and yet striking off 

 their tops, and making poles of them, I found that some of them, if not all, 

 showed moisture; but I am convinced since, that it was rather some unheeded 

 accident, as violently bending them, or perhaps the warmth of my hand and 

 season, or place, which caused this new motion of sap, than merely the strik- 

 ing off their tops. 



Some Communications about an early Swarm of Bees. As also concern-' 

 ing Cyder; Descent of Sap ; the Season of Transplanting Vegetables* 

 Sent to the Publisher out of Herefordshire by Richard Reed, Esq. 

 in a Letter dated March 14, I67O- 1 , at Lugwardine. N" JO, p. 2128. 



On Thursday last, the 9th instant, there was at the next house to mine a 

 swarm of bees. It was a very fair day to entice them. I had it from the 

 owner, one Parry, now in my work, and I inquired of him, whether they did 

 not all leave the hive, as sometimes they do unseasonably, either for want of 

 food or out of distaste ? he told me, no, but there are as many left behind as 

 came forth. But I conceive that poverty drew them abroad to seek their for- 

 tunes ; the Infinite Wisdom having imparted such a providence to that little 

 commonwealth, as to send part of their company abroad to shift, before their 

 whole stock of food shall be consumed, to the destruction of them all. 



