yield a poisonous syrup, of which the bees partake without injury, but
which has been fatal to man. He has enumerated some of these plants,
which ought to be destroyed wherever they are seen, namely, dwarf-laurel,
great laurel, kalmia latifolia, broad-leaved moorwort, Pennsylvania
mountain-laurel, wild honeysuckle (the bees, cannot get much of this,)
and the stramonium or Jamestown-weed.

A young bee can be readily distinguished from an old one, by the greyish
coloured down that covers it, and which it loses by the wear and tear of
hard labour; and if the bee be not destroyed before the season is over,
this down entirely disappears, and the groundwork of the insect is seen,
white or black. On a close examination, very few of these black or aged
bees, will be seen at the opening of the spring, as, not having the
stamina of those that are younger, they perish from inability to
encounter the vicissitudes of winter.--_American Farmer's Manual_.

* * * * *


THE ELM.

(_To the Editor of the Mirror_.)


I shall be obliged to any of your correspondents who can inform me from
whence came the term _witch-elm_, a name given to a species of elm tree,
to distinguish it from the common elm. Some people have conjectured that
it was a corruption of _white elm_, and so called from the silvery
whiteness of its leaves when the sun shines upon them; but this is hardly
probable, as Sir F. Bacon in his "_Silva Silvarum_, or Natural History,