490 THE SO-CALLED BUGONIA OF THE ANCIENTS. 



side from which the wind l)k>\\ s strongest. After eleven days you 

 will lind the house full of bees, hanging together in clusters, and 

 nothing left of the ox but horus, bones, and hair." (Aldrovaudi, 

 /. c. p. 58; also a mention in Eedi, I.e. i, p. 53.) Some authors, like 

 Celus, and afterwards Columella, show their common sense in declar- 

 ing tliat is useless to take all this trouble, when liive-born bees can be 

 so easily obtained. I shall return to this subject in treating of the 

 literature of the Bmjonia. 



All these errors would have been avoided if the people from the very 

 beginning, had known how to distinguish a honey-bee from a bee-like 

 tly. Until this knowledge was forthcoming there was no reason for not 

 believing in the Bngonia. 



Aristotle* knew that four-winged insects liave the sting in the tail 

 and the two-winged ones in the front of the head; and for this reason, 

 if he ever came in contact with EristaUs tenax, he would have recog- 

 nized a fly, and not a bee, in it. At any rate, although he was a 

 believer in spontaneous generation, he never mentioned the Bngonia 

 in his paragrai)hs about bees. 



But after Aristotle, for a period of about twenty centuries, the ques- 

 tion of Bugonia remained in abeyance, and the belief was accepted 

 even by men of learning. I will show in the sectuel that, as late as 

 1(»()2, there was a Dutch savant, in whose presence an B. tenax was pro- 

 duced from putrescent matter, and who actually took it for a honey- 

 bee, and the case before him as an instaiu-e of Bugonia! 



The thesis which 1 maintain is, that it is to E. tenax alone, and no 

 other bee-like or wasp-like flies {(Estrida\ Helophilus, etc.) that the 

 origin of the belief in the Bngonia is due; in other words, that if this 

 particular fly had not existed the belief would never have arisen. 

 E. tenax has several attributes which make it jire-emiueutly fitted for 

 assuming the role of an oxen-born bee: 



(1) It is more like a hohey-bee than any other fly; the other flies, 

 which have been named in connection with the Bugonia, have a differ- 

 ent aspect; the (Estridw are more Ukehnmhle-hees; Helophilus is more 

 like a wasp. 



(2) It oviposits on carcasses in a state of far advanced decomposition 

 in which its larvic thrive, and these habits correspond to the tradition 

 of the oxen-born bee. The larvjie of (Estrus (genus Hijpoderma) live 

 in the skin of /('r/»/; animals; the wasp-like i7<'/o^>/<ii».s', although a close 

 relative of EristaUs in the zoological system, and developing, like that 



" Aristoteles, Hist. Anim. iv, 7, 4 : " The winged ouesamoug insects, are either two- 

 winged, like flies, or four-winged, like bees; but none of those which have a sting 

 in the tail are two-winged." And 7. c. iv, 7, ,3: "Also the myops (probably Ho'ma- 

 topuia ca'cuiiens) and the ccsfrus (Tabanus) have a hard tongue - - - because 

 all that have no tail sting use the tongue as a weapon." Also in the. I)c partihus 

 anim. iv, 6, 3-4, where Aristoteles says that Uiptera have but two wings, because 

 they are lighter than Hymenoptera. I. B. Meyer, Aristoteles Thiirkiindc, Berlin, 1855, 

 p. 209, has some critical remarks about these passages. 



