Eclipse/Java - Values in R.string.* return int?

Question

I thought I'd be classy and use the string.xml file to define some constant strings for things like exception messages. In strings.xml I hit Add, chose the "String" option (not 'String Array'), then gave it a name and value. I was surprised to see that this code doesn't work:

throw new Exception(R.string.MyExceptionMessage);

And that fails because R.string.MyExceptionMessage is actually of type int. I can verify that type by looking in R.java. What am I missing?