OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 35 



vast multitude of butterflies swarmed througli a great 

 part of Germany, and sprinkled plants, leaves, buildings, 

 clothes and men, with bloody drops, as if it had rained 

 blood ^. But the most interesting account of an event 

 of this kind is given by Reaumur, from whom we learn 

 that in the beginning of July 1608 the suburbs of Aix, 

 and a considerable extent of country round it, were co- 

 vered with what appeared to be a shower of blood. We 

 may conceive the amazement and stupor of the populace 

 upon such a discovery, the alarm of the citizens, the 

 grave reasonings of the learned. All agreed however in 

 attributing this appearance to the powers of darkness, 

 and in regarding it as the prognostic and precursor of 

 some direful misfortune about to befall them. Fear and 

 prejudice would have taken deep root upon this occasion, 

 and might have produced fatal effects upon some weak 

 minds, had not M. Peiresc, a celebrated philosopher of 

 that place, paid attention to insects. A chrysalis which 

 he preserved in his cabinet, let him into the secret of this 

 mysterious shower. Hearing a fluttering, which informed 

 him his insect was arrived at its perfect state, he opened 

 the box in which he kept it. The animal flew out and 

 left behind it a red spot. He compared this with the 

 spots of the bloody shower, and found they were alike. 

 At the same time he observed there was a prodigious 

 quantity of butterflies flying about, and that the drops of 

 the miraculous rain were not to be found upon the tiles, 

 nor even upon the upper surface of the stones, but chiefly 

 in cavities and places where rain could not easily come. 

 Thus did this judicious observer dispel the ignorant fears 

 and terror which a natural phenomenon had caused"^. 



* Quoted in Mouffet, 107- " Reainn. i. 667- 



D 2 



