THE EARMEb’s MANVAL. 
183 
other argument against its being an exudation, un-- 
less it can be proved that the sap of all plants is ho- 
mogeneous, and this 1 believe the most hardy dispu- 
tant will not attempt- to do. It is certain that the 
most credible writers on this subject, men of science 
and knowledge, have maintained that they have ac- 
tually witnessed the fall of this honey-dew ; and Mr. 
Ducarne, one of the most intelligent of those writers, 
thus expresses himself upon the subject.” 
“ You know what that honey is which the Bees 
collect with so much ardour in the flowers, but you 
do not know, perhaps, that there arc two kinds ; one, 
which is the real honey, is a juice of the earth, which, 
proceeding from the plants by transpiration, is col- 
lected at the bottom of the nectarium of the flowers, 
and is thickened afterwards; it is, in other words, a 
digested and refined sap in the tribes of plants ; the 
other, which is called the honey-dew, is an effect of 
the air, ora species of gluey dew, which falls earlier 
or later, but generally during the dog-days. This 
dew lights upon the flowers and leaves of plants and 
trees; but the heat, operating upon it, coagulates and 
thickens it, whilst, on the other hand, the honey 
which falls on the flowers, is preserved a ntiuch longer 
time. It is said that an abundance of this dew ren- 
ders the Bees idle, and makes them careless of col- 
lecting the common honey from the nectarium of the 
flowers. I however, never saw them collect it, but 
upon the flowers. One great disadvantage, there- 
fore, of this honey-dew is, that if the season be fog- 
gy and moist, and especially if attended with smml 
rain, this rain, or the too great humidity of the air, 
corrupts it, and forms a composition very inferior to 
the honey of the first species, or to that which has 
not undergone this adulteration. Those persons who 
have not viewed the honey-dew fall, as 1 have done, 
assert that it is nothing more than the juice, or sap 
of the plants, which, in hot weather, experiences per- 
haps a greater fermentation, by which it is forced 
