720 DIDYNAMIA. GYMNOSPERMIA. Thymus 
It is subject to considerable variations, the principal of which are: 
Var. 2. FI alb . Huds. Blossoms white. 
Thyme delights in dry, upland spots, such as may generally be deemed most healthful— 
lienee Dr. Armstrong considers its prevalence as an index to the most desirable situations 
for building : 
- “ Mark where the dry champaigu 
Swells into cheerful hills ; where Marjoram 
And Thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air: 
There bid thy roofs high on the basking steep 
Ascend : there light thy hospitable fires.” E.) 
A general opinion prevails, that the flesh of sheep, or deer, that feed upon aromatic 
plants, particularly upon Thyme, is much superior in flavour to common mutton ; but Mr. 
Bowles, the ingenious author of the account of the Sheep-walks in Spain, (Gent. Mag. 
1764), considers this as a vulgar error. He says, sheep are not fond of aromatic 
plants ; that they will carefully push aside the Thyme to get at the grass growing beneath 
it; and that they never touch it, unless when walking apace, and then they will catch at 
any thing. The attachment of bees to this and other aromatic herbs is well known. (It 
was even customary among the ancients to render the hives more agreeable by rubbing 
them with such as 
—-— (t L’umile Serpillo, 
Che con mille radici attorte e crespe 
Sen va carpon vestando il terren d’erba, 
E la Mdlissa ch’odor sempre esala; 
La Mammola, 1'Origano, et il Timo , 
Che natura cre6 per fare il mele.” Rucellai. 
Before the substitution of the produce of the Sugar-cane, honey was a far more 
important requisite in domestic economy than latterly, and Thyme was then extensively 
cultivated for the encouragement of bees ; 
“ Here their delicious task the fervent bees, 
In swarming millions, tend : around, athwart. 
Thro’ the soft air, the busy nations fly, 
Cling to the bud, and, with inserted tube. 
Suck its pure essence, its ethereal soul: 
And * * * * soaring dare 
The purple heath, or where the JFild Thyme grows, 
, And yellow load them with the luscious spoil.” Thomson. 
And thus does a brother poet delicately compliment the amiable Shenstone, who, in his 
admired retreat, omitted no suitable accompaniment: 
“ He cultur’d his Thyme for the bees, 
But never would rifle their cell.” Cunningham. 
A salutary caution may be here given, that honey often becomes powerfully impregnated 
with the quality of the plants from which it is extracted. It is important, therefore, 
cautiously to exclude deleterious herbs from the apiarian territory ; serious, and even fatal, 
indispositions have been thus occasioned; and Dr. Barton records (in the American Phil. 
Tr. vol. v.) an extensive mortality which occurred near Philadelphia, in 1790, solely 
attributable to the use of honey obtained from Kalmia latifolia. Even mead thus 
incautiously prepared may produce calamitous results. It is on record that the Greeks, on 
their retreat after the death of the younger Cyrus, found a kind of honey at Trebisond, 
which proved so intoxicating that they lay on the ground as though completely discomfited. 
Pliny names this pernicious honey Mcenomenon , and supposes it to have been collected 
from a species of Rhododendron.—According to entomologists, when the stomach of a bee 
is filled with nectar, it next, by means of the feathered hairs with which the body is 
covered, pilfers from the flowers the fertilizing dust (pollen) of the anthers; which is 
equally necessary to the society with honey, and may be named the ambrosia of the hive, 
since from it the bee-bread is made.—On this curious subject Aristotle stated, and some 
moderns have remarked, that instinct teaches the bee that grains of pollen that enter into 
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