Recti's Experiments on the Generation of Insects, 225 



next victims to his inquisitive spirit, and these also were soon 

 peopled ; but on these, and the sides of the box in which they 

 were placed, he observed not only worms, but also some very 

 small eggs, which, crushed between the nails, gave a white 

 subtle liquid, clearer and less viscous than the white of birds' 

 eggs. By the twentieth day they were all hatched, and the 

 worms had increased to twice their original size, and went 

 about twenty-five or thirty to the grain ; but, next day, they 

 were so amazingly enlarged, as to weigh about 7 grains each. 

 Meanwhile, they continued devouring the fish, and, finally, 

 left nothing but the bones ; and these " they left as white and 

 clean as if they had issued from the hands of the most diligent 

 anatomist in Europe." Having taken means to prevent their 

 flight, which they all attempted, he watched their gradual 

 progress towards perfection. The perfect insects were of five 

 kinds ; four he had seen before, the fifth, a little black fly, 

 greatly exceeding the number of its pupae, which were black 

 and large, he had never observed till then. Seeing this curious 

 disproportion, he opened one or two of the pupae, and found 

 that they contained, upon an average, from twenty-five to 

 thirty flies, but never more than forty. After this, he made 

 many more experiments on lion's flesh, tiger's, and, in fact, 

 multitudinous species offish, flesh, and fowl, cooked and raw, 

 and found that the insects were promiscuously produced on 

 all kinds of meat ; and, indeed, one piece would sometimes 

 contain all the species he had observed, and he generally ob- 

 served not only worms but eggs. The eggs reminded him of 

 the impurities left upon meats by flies (that afterwards become 

 worms), which butchers and housewives guarded against by 

 defending them with gauze coverings. 



This made him doubt whether the eggs he had perceived 

 were not deposited on the meat, by flies similar to those they 

 produced, instead of being generated by the corruption ; the 

 more, because he invariably found that flies, resembling those 

 afterwards produced from their eggs, alighted upon the flesh 

 previously to the appearance of the worms ; " but vain would 

 have been the doubt, if experience had not proved this." To 

 do so, he put into four wide-necked flasks, a snake, some 

 river fish, some eels from the Arno, and some veal, and covered 

 the mouths with paper, tied on tight, and sealed. As many 

 more flasks, containing similar meats, he left open. In a few- 

 days, the fishes and meat in the open flasks were, as usual, 

 covered with worms ; in the closed flasks, the flesh, although 

 putrid, was entirely free from worms, though, on the outside 

 of the paper, there were a few worms as well as eggs ; the 

 former, in vain, using every endeavour to enter. After this. 



