Jlffstiom. 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 irpvno\is, K6fj.fj.axns, and TTUTO-O- 



