250 NATURAL HISTOR Y 
have legs four times as long as the briftles ; there were no 
wings that I could perceive ; but I do not affert that there were 
none : the leaf turns black in the place where this infedt faflens . 
Pollibly this may not be a non-defcript ; I only produce it as an 
inftance that the difcolouring and decay of leaves, even in exoticks, 
Inftinft. is owing fometimes to unobferved infeeds. Among the numerous 
tribes of infeeds which have employed the attention of the curious, 
it is wonderful to obferve, that every fpecies has a different art (if 
I may fo call the impreffed inftindt) of procuring its food, and pre- 
paring proper receptacles for its different ftates of caterpillar, nym- 
pha, and fly : among them the fpider cannot be fufficiently admired 
for extracting its threads out of its own body ; fometimes it fixes, 
and makes that thread either its ftreight rope to convey itlelf from 
one poft to another, or by its extended furface fpins the thread fo 
much lighter than the air, as to float and bear up its author, till fhe 
finds a place to fix in proper to her defigns ; at other times fhe weaves 
the fame thread moft artfully into nets or webs for intercepting and 
fettering her prey. Still more admirable, as well as ufeful, is the 
bee ; the frugality of fpace, the uniformity of fhape obferved in 
the conftruction of the cells and combs, her delicacy and choice of 
flowers which yield the beft honey, her laborious collection of wax, 
the ceconomy, policy, colonies, and the general abhorrence of lazi- 
nefs of this little infect, are all evidences of an inftinct, which ( if 
it may not be called reafon, circumfcribed, and applicable folely to 
the exigencies of one particular fpecies) is the ftamp, the leal, the 
impreflion of reafon from above. By the greateft, ftrongeft, ftatelieft 
animals of the brute kind, we have no where a richer treafure col- 
lected than that of the bee, more fkilfully compofed, a magazine more 
carefully fecured, and more impartially diftributed. But to return : 
The honey of Cornwall is reckoned good, and of a high flavour, 
as I have been informed by gentlemen of fickly habits, who have 
preferred it to moft Englilh honey : this excellency is perhaps more 
owing to the multitude of our ftiores, where the bees are frequently 
feen intent upon the fait and brine which the fea throws in upon 
the rocks, than to the nature of our heath and other pafture k . 
Of late years the burning-houfes, where the tin is roafted 1 , prove 
fatal to bees ; thole that are within reach of the fmoke lan- 
guilh, and are foon killed, having no liberty to range as the 
wind and variety of food determines them, without danger of 
fuftocation. 
1 It Teems of that kind which Mr. Hill calls is but half the value of that which is gathered 
Scelauus. Hift. of Animals, page io. elfewhere. 
k It is obferved in Hamlhire, as I have been 1 See page 1 34. 
informed, that the honey collected from the heath 
The 
