38 GENERATION OF INSECTS 



teriam una cum cibo assumunt, assumptamque per ahum 

 reddunt" Sperling failed to observe what may be daily 

 seen by everyone, namely, that flies have their ovaries 

 divided into two separate cells which contain the eggs that 

 are sent down through a single and common canal from 

 which they are ejected, and, indeed, in such large quanti- 

 ties as would appear incredible, certain green flies being 

 so fertile that each one would have in its ovary as many 

 as two hundred eggs. Hence Sperling erred in his be- 

 lief that the maggots of flies are generated from the dung 

 of the same. A friend of mine went equally wide in his 

 conclusions, for having noticed that a fly, entangled in a 

 web, dropped a worm whenever the spider bit it, he be- 

 lieved that the spider's bite had power to create worms in 

 the bodies of flies. Hence as I have shown, no dead 

 animal can breed worms. 



How then can it be true that bees are born in the de- 

 cayed flesh of bulls ? Yet this statement has been made 

 and believed. Varro relates that the Greeks called them 

 Povy6va<i on that account. This is a sample of one 

 of those ancient falsehoods of fabulous origin, which are 

 subsequently confirmed as truth by other writers and al- 

 ways with some addition ; for all do not describe the won- 

 derful generation of bees in the same way. Columella 

 declared that, not wishing to waste time, he would ad- 

 here to the opinion of Celsus, who conceded immortality 

 to the bees, hence it was superfluous to seek for them in 

 the entrails of a decayed bull. But Magone, quoted by 

 Columella, teaches that the decayed viscera of the bull 

 is their place of origin ; to which Pliny adds, as necessary, 

 a covering of dung. Antigonus Carystius, in his 

 " Collection of Wonderful Histories," says that a whole 

 bullock must be put under ground, allowing the horns 



