be mee Of the Honey-Dew. 123 
“In the end of ‘Fanuary, or in February, life them gent- 
ly from the ftools, and cleanfing the filth, fet them again 
in their place. And if your ground will allow, let them 
ftand a full yard diftant from each other, and not too 
great numbers in one garden; for by that means I had 
no lefs than feven {warms the laft fummer, which fet- 
' tled all together. 
Of the Honey- Dew. 
WHAT the honey-dew is, is difputed among the 
learned.* According to the ancients it was an efflux of 
air, a dew which fell upon flowers. 
The moderns fay it is rather a perfpiration of the fi- 
neft particles of the fap in plants, which evaporating 
thro’ the pores afterwards condenfe upon the flowers.+ 
Pliny was much in the dark about it, and writes 
doubtfully of it, afferting, it was either the fweat of hea- 
ven, the fpittle of the ftars, or the moifture of the air 
purging itfelf. f 
Dr. Butler judges it to be the quinteffence of all the 
earth’s fweetnelfs (i. e. of the flowers) exhaled, as other 
dews in vapours, into the loweft region of the air, by 
the continued and exceeding heat of the fun, and cons 
denfed there.§ : 
And thence Ihave very often feen it defeend, ina 
clear day, like an exceeding fine rain; and eafily dif- 
cerned 
® Mel roftidam, + Nat. Delin, p. 108. 
$ Sive illud fit Cpeli Sudor, five quedam Sirua faliva, five purgantis 
Je Aeris Succus, § Butler’s Foci, Monar, pag. 111. 
