CHAPTER XVTII 



HONEY DEW. 



This is a substance that is supposed by some to be an 

 exudation from the leaves of trees ; such as the oak, 

 laurel, bramble, poplar, willow, &c. Other naturalists 

 have considered it a substance that falls from the 

 atmosphere. 



Mr. Ducarne, a foreign naturalist of distinction thus 

 speaks : — " You know what honey is, which the bees 

 collect with so much ardor from flowers, but you do not, 

 perhaps, know that there are two kinds ; one, which is 

 real honey, being a juice of the earth, which proceeding 

 from the plants by transpiration, collects at the bottom 

 of the calyx of the flowers, and thickens afterwards ; it 

 is, in other words, a digested and refined sap in the tubes 

 of plants ; the other, which is called the honey dew, is 

 an effect of air, or a species of gluej' dew, which falls 

 earlier or later, but in general a little before and during 

 the dog days. The dew alights on the flowers, and the 

 leaves of the plants and trees, but the heat operating 

 - on it, coagulates and thickens it, whilst, on the other, 



