THE SO-CALLED BUGONTA OF THE ANCIENTS, 

 AND ITS KELATION TO A 15EE-LIKE FLY,— ERLSTALIS TENAX." 



By C. R. OsTEN Sacken. 



For more than two thousand years a superstition has been prevalent 

 in the minds of the masses, as well as in books, to the effect that, 

 besides the usual production of honey bees in hives, they originated 

 by spontaneous generation from carcasses of dead animals, and i:)rin- 

 cipally from those of oxen. Thus arose in Greece the term Bugonid 

 (from fiou:; an ox, and yovrj, progeny), as well as the expression bugenes 

 melissae, tmirigena' a])es^ that is, oxen-born bees, in the Greek and Latin 

 literature. This superstition prevailed also in northern Africa and in 

 some parts of Asia; it continued through the Middle Ages, and found 

 expression even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The friend 

 of Luther, the learned and pious Melanchthon, considered it as a 

 divine provision; an Italian poet of the sixteenth century put it into 

 verse ;t the great naturalist Aldrovandi (1602) accepted it without con- 

 tradiction; the English naturalist Moufet (Theatren lusectorum, 1634)| 

 spoke of it as a common occurrence {experientia rmtica et vulgaris, I. 

 c, p. 12); and, hnally, the learned Bochart (1003) § admitted it as an 

 undoubted truth. 



* Extracts from article in BuUetino deUa Societa Entomologica Italiana, 1893. 



t Giovanni Rucellai (1475-1525), in Florence and Rome, died as Governer of S. 

 Augelo. His poem: Le J^r;, Amsterd. latin edit. 1681, p. 68, contains an account 

 of tbe Bugonia. 



t Moufet was a contemporary of Queen Elizabeth, and died without publishing his 

 work. "It fell into the hands of Sir Theod. Mayerne, Baron d'Aubone, one of the 

 court physicians in the time of Charles I, who at length published it, prefixing a 

 dedication to Sir Wm. Paddy, M. D., in 1634." (This passage, as well as the pre- 

 vious history of the " Theatrum Insectorum," will be found in Kirby and Spence, 

 Introd. IV, p. 429-430.) I spell Movfd (K. and S. have Mouffet) as I find it on the 

 title-page of my copy of the "Theatrum," 1634. By a strange and perhaps siguiti' 

 cant coincidence, such works as Moufet's, Swammerdam's, and Lyonet's " Recber- 

 ches," were neglected by their contemporaries, and published long after the death 

 of their authors. 



§ Samuel Bochart, Hierozoicon, sire 02)iis bipartltum de animaJihtis sacra; scriptiiroe, 

 London, 1663. This stupendous monument of erudition was my principal source 

 for all the references on the Bugonia from Greek and Roman authors {I. c. vol. ii, 

 p. 502-505). I have also used Aldrovandi, De animalihus insevtis, Bologna, 1602 (pp. 

 8-60. 



487 



