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REVIEWS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS- 
in the country, is well acquainted with the 4 bag o’ the Bee/ ” (p. 119.) Further 
On, we find the dramatist 44 adopting the universal , though incorrect , opinion of 
his day ” in the line, referring to Bees— 
“ Our thighs are packed with wax.” 
A curious circumstance is stated at p. 132. A gentleman exported two 
stocked hives from Bristol to "Waterford, in the summer of 1828. Next spring 
the English Bees were busily employed at work full a month before their Hiber¬ 
nian neighbours, in the same garden, had commenced. The following year they 
were earlier than the Irish Bees, but not so much so as the preceding season; and 
now no difference is to be observed in this particular. 
Respecting honey-dew, we may quote the following:—- 
“ Honey-dew, instead of being, as Pliny conjectures, the saliva of the stars, or a liquid produced 
by the purgation of the air, is a secretion deposited by a small insect, which is green upon the 
Rose-tree and black upon the Woodbine, and which entomologists distinguish by the generic 
name of Aphis. The liquid they deposit is perfectly pure, and rivals either honey or sugar in its 
sweetness. The Ants not only suck it up with eagerness, whenever it can be found, but they 
possess the art of making the Aphides yield it, by patting them gently with their antennae; and- 
one particular species of Ant is said to confine the Aphides in apartments constructed solely for 
that purpose, to supply them with food, to protect them from danger, and to take, in every respect, 
as much care of them as we should do of our milch cattle.”—p. 145. 
Dr. Bevan states ( Treatise on the Honey Bee, new edit., p. 71.) his belief that 
there are t wo kinds of honey-dew; the one a secretion from the surface of leaves j 
the other a deposition from the body of the Aphis. 
In conclusion, we may express our opinion that Shakspeare excelled not. so 
much as an observant naturalist, as in the apt and striking similes and illustra¬ 
tions which he so well knew how to draw from facts generally known. 
With the execution of Mr. Patterson’s volume, as a popular treatise on the 
insects mentioned by Shakspeare, we are much pleased; and the ^notices of the 
Entomology of Ireland will prove both interesting and valuable to the more 
advanced naturalist. The work is embellished—we will not exactly say illus¬ 
trated—with numerous wood-cuts. 
Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa; consisting chiefly of Figures and 
Descriptions of the Objects of Natural History collected during an Expedition 
into the Interior of South Africa, in the years 1834,5, and 6 ; fitted out by 44 The 
Cape of Good Hope Association for exploring Central Africa : together with a 
Summary of African Zoology, and an Inquiry into the Geographical Ranges of 
Species in that Quarter of the. Globe. By Andrew Smith, M.D., Surgeon to the 
Forces, and Director of the Expedition. Published under the Authority of the 
VOL. IV.- NO. XXV; 
H 
