Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/306

284 senses will inform us; and that this clammy sweet substance is of the vegetable kind we may learn from bees, to whom it is very grateful: and we may be assured that it falls in the night, because it is always first seen in warm still mornings. 1

On chalky and sandy soils, and in the hot villages about London, the thermometer has been often observed to mount as high as 83° or 84°; but with us, in this hilly and woody district, I have hardly ever seen it exceed 80°; nor does it often arrive at that pitch. The reason, I conclude, is, that our dense clayey soil, so much shaded by trees, is not so easily heated through as those above-mentioned; and, besides, our mountains cause currents of air and breezes; and the vast effluvia from our woodlands temper and moderate our heats.

1 White's explanation of the origin of honeydew is ingenious, but incorrect. It is now ascertained to be an exudation from the aphides themselves. It is by some called their excrement.

LETTER LXV. summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous one, and full of horrible phenomena; for, besides the alarming meteors and tremendous thunder-storms that affrighted and distressed the different counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze, or smoky fog, that prevailed for many weeks in this island, and in every part of Europe, and even beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary appearance, unlike anything known within the memory of man. By my journal I find that I had noticed this strange occurrence from June 23rd to July 20th inclusive, during which period the wind varied to every quarter without making any alteration in the air. The sun, at noon, looked as blank as a clouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured ferruginous light on the ground, and floors of rooms; but was particularly lurid and blood-coloured