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[7] There is a winged animal in this country which they call anthredon, smaller than the bee but very useful. It roams the mountains gathering nectar from every kind of flower. Dwelling in hollow rocks and lightning-blasted trees it forms combs of wax and fashions a liquor of surpassing sweetness, not far inferior to our honey.1

1 With some exaggeration, Cleitarchus said of this insect (Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, no. 137, F 14): "It lays waste the hill-country and dashes into the hollow oaks." Tarn (Alexander the Great, 2.90) may be right in preferring the manuscript reading which would make it "smaller than the bee but with a vast appearance," although I do not see precisely what this would mean. Cp. Strabo 2.1.14.

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