FRUIT FLIES ^J^ 



kinds of animals are bred in the soil, in mud, in swamps, 

 and in the bed of rivers. Thus Ovid, in the first book of 

 the " Metamorphoses " writes : 



** Sic ubi deseruit madidos septemfluus agros 

 Nilus, et antiqua sua flumina reddidit alveo, 

 Aetherioque recens exarsit sidere limus: 

 Plurima cultores versis animalia glebis 

 Inveniunt, et in his quaedam modo coepta sub ipsum 

 Nascendi spatium: quaedam imperfecta, suisque 

 Trunca vident numeris : et eodem in corpore saepe 

 Altera pars vivit; rudis est pars altera tellus. 

 Quippe ubi temperium sumpsere humorque, calorque : 

 Concipiunt; et ab his oriuntur cuncta duobus. 

 Cumque sit ignis aquae pugnax ; vapor humidus omnes 

 Res creat, et discors concordia foetibus apta est." 



This opinion was seconded by Plutarch, by Macrobius 

 in the *' Saturnalia," by Pliny, and finally an innumerable 

 host of ancients, who were followed like sheep by an in- 

 finite number of modern writers. Thus it is that I am 

 sometimes astonished in considering how these authors 

 conceived Nature to be so careless a generatrix, now 

 creating animals of flesh and bone, and then making 

 others of pure clay. But we have ^lianus's word for it 

 that he saw animals made in this manner on a journey 

 from Naples to Pozzuoli; and Ovid, not content in the 

 above-quoted verses with having driven into our heads 

 his story of seeing animals in mud, without legs or joints, 

 clenches the fact again in book fifteen : 



" Semina limus habet virides generantia ranas : 

 Et generat truncas pedibus ; mox apta natando 

 Crura dat, utque eadem sint longis saltibus apta." 



But what causes me most amusement is the statement 

 of Pliny that these same frogs, after a short life of six 



