HOKKT. 115 



the ash, two' kinds of linden, the sorb, the barberry, two 

 kinds of raspberry, the poplar, the birch, two kinds of 

 maple, and the hazel brush. In some parts of Europe, this 

 honey-dew is so plentiful, that some Apiarists transport their 

 bees to the districts in which it is produced, during its 

 yield. (Fig. 42.) 



256. Bees also harvest, in some seasons, a sweet sub- 

 stance of poorer quality, which is a discharge from the 

 bodies of small aphides or " plant lice."* 



Messrs. Kirby and Spence, in their interesting work on 

 Entomology, have given a description of the honey-dew 

 furnished by the aphides : 



" The loves of the ants and the aphides have long been cele- 

 brated ; you will always find the former very busy on those trees 

 and plants on which the latter abound ; and, if you examine 

 somewhat more closely, you will discover that the object of the 

 ants in thus attending upon the aphides, is to obtain the saccha- 

 rine fluid secreted by them, which may well be denominated their 

 milk. This fluid, which is scarcely inferior to honey in its 

 sweetness, issues in limpid drops from the abdomen of these in- 

 sects, not only by the ordinary passage, but also, by two setiform 

 tubes, placed one on each side, just above it. Their sucker being 

 inserted in the tender bark is, without intermission, employed in 

 absorbing the sap, which, after it has passed through these or- 

 gans, they keep continually discharging. When no ants attend 

 them, by a certain jerk of the body, which takes place at regular 

 intervals, they ejaculate it to a distance." 



257. "Mr. Knight once observed a shower of honey-dew 

 descending in innumerable small globules, near one of his oak 

 trees. He cut off' one of the branches, took it into the house, 

 and, holding it in a stream of light admitted through a small 

 opening, distinctly saw the aphides ejecting the fluid from their 

 bodies with considerable force, and this accounts for its being 



* The Abbfi Boissier de Sanvages, in 1763, described two Bpecies of honey- 

 dew. The first kind, he says, has the same origin with the manna on the ash 

 and maple trees of Calabria and Briani,on, where it flows plentifully from 

 their leaTea and trunks, and thickens in the form in which It is usually seen. 

 — (" Observations sur I'Origine dn Mlel. ") We have received specimens of 

 a honey-dew fi:om California, which is said to fall from the oak trees in sta- 

 lactites of considerable size . 



