12 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
Elder, who was born in a.D. 23. He, too, deals 
with the ox-born bees; but the reader’s interest 
will centre for the most part in Pliny’s grave and 
careful account of the life and customs of the. 
honey-bee, as commonly accepted among his con- 
temporaries. Very few indeed of the facts he so 
picturesquely details have any real foundation in 
truth. Like nearly all the classic writers, he had 
little more accurate knowledge of the life within 
the hive than we have of the bottom of the Pacific 
Ocean. But he made up for this deficiency, as 
did all others of his time; by dipping largely into 
the stores of his own fancy as well as those of 
other people. 
His account of the origin and nature of honey 
is quaintly pleasant reading. ‘“ Honey,” he says, 
‘is engendered from the air, mostly at the rising 
of the constellations, and more especially when 
Sirius is shining; never, however, before the 
rising of the Vergiliz, and then just before day- 
break. . . . Whether it is that this liquid is the 
sweat of the heavens, or whether a saliva emanat- 
ing from the stars, or a juice exuding from the 
air while purifying itself—would that it had been, 
when it comes to us, pure, limpid, and genuine, as 
it was when first it took its downward descent. 
But, as it is, falling from so vast a height, attract- 
ing corruption in its passage, and tainted by the 
exhalations of the earth as it meets them; sucked, 
too, as it is, from off the trees and the herbage of 
