MANNA.

Near Melbourne I again noticed the manna mentioned above, but had no
opportunity of making further observations upon it. Mr. Bynoe, however,
having since visited Australia, has turned his attention to the subject,
and the result of his experience, which will be found below, tends to
overthrow the opinion I have previously expressed, to the effect, that
this substance is the exudation of a tree, not the deposit of an insect.*

(*Footnote. There is a prevailing opinion in some parts of New Holland,
particularly on the east side, that the gumtrees distil a peculiar form
of manna, which drops at certain seasons of the year. I have heard it
from many of the inhabitants, who, on a close investigation, could only
say, that it was to be found adhering to the old and young bark of the
trees, as well as strewed on the ground beneath.

In the month of December, about the warmest period of the year, during my
rambles through the forest in search of insects, I met with this manna in
the above-mentioned state, but could never find in any part of the bark a
fissure or break whence such a substance could flow. Wherever it
appeared, moreover, the red-eyed cicadae were in abundance. I was
inclined to think that the puncture produced by these suctorial insects
into the tender shoots for juice, would in all probability give an exit
for such a substance; but by wounding the tender branches with a
sharp-pointed knife, I could never obtain a saccharine fluid or
substance. It was the season when the cicadae were abundantly collected
together for reproduction; and on warm, clear, still days, they clung to
the more umbrageous parts, particularly to trees that, having been
deprived of old limbs, shot forth vigorous stems, thickly clustered with
leaves. To one of these, in which the male insects were making an
intolerable noise, I directed my steps, and quietly sheltered myself from
a hot wind that was crossing the harbour, bringing with it a dense column
of smoke, which for a short time shut out the powerful rays of the sun. I
found that the ground about the root of the tree was thinly covered with
the sugar-like substance, and in a few minutes I felt that a fluid was
dropping, which soon congealed on my clothes into a white substance. On
rising cautiously to ascertain from whence it came, with a full
determination not to disturb the insects but to watch their pursuits, I
observed that it was passing of a syrup-like consistence per anum