71 
rains, or falls, like dew. But it never falls from a point 
seg than the branches where the groups of pucerons are 
xed. ; 
_ This last circumstance, and the one immediately preced- 
ing, have given me an explanation of a phenomenon, which 
formerly embarrassed me. I was passing under a linden | 
tree, (tilleul) in the king’s garden at Paris, when I felt some 
very minute drops fall on my hand, which I at first took for 
mist, I should have been screened from the mist by the shade 
of the tree, but, on the contrary, I avoided it by passing out 
of the shade. A bench which stood under the tree, was 
shining bright, and, on touching it, [ perceived a glutinous 
matter, which was honey-dew. 
At that time, I knew nothing of any kind of honey-dew, 
but that which transpires from vegetables. How, said I to 
myself, can a substance so viscous fall immediately from the 
leaves, in so small drops, when rain water cannot detach it- 
self from them, and overcome its natural adhesion, till after 
it has combined in grosser masses? I did not, at that time, 
conceive of the honey-dew ejected by those pucerons. I satis- 
fied myself, however, that it was some of their work, hav- 
ing since known that the linden tree is very subject to these 
vermin, and that it is one of the kinds of trees which 
abounds in this sort of honey-juice. 
The honey-bee is not the only insect, as we have already 
insinuated, which makes its delicacies of it. The ants have 
claims on this nectar, quite as well establisned, and in which 
they are quite as epicurean. Some naturalists have before 
noticed the appetite of these latter, without knowing the 
reservoir of that which is the object of it, viz. the pucerons. 
They move round the swarm of these insects, to spy the 
moment when the manna drops. Very different from the 
bees, the ants, which live from hand to mouth, or from day 
to day, work only for themselves, and we never profit by an 
excess of harvest from them. 
Two sorts of ants go in quest of the pucerons; each has 
its separate district, and never sports on the pleasures of 
the other, though weaker. The large, black wood-ants, have 
their department over the black pucerons of the oaks and 
chesnut trees. ‘The smaller ants pursue the green pucerons 
on the elder and bramble, (ronce.) The pincers of neither 
are suited to pick up or collect the honey-dew, which 
spreads over the bodies on which it falls. ‘They abandon 
this to the bees, who are employed below, and establish them- 
