GENERATION OF INSECTS. 5 



• 



blow-flies, as Swammerdam remarks, so often found 

 in the carcasses of animals in summicr, ' somewhat 

 resemble those produced by the eggs of bees. How- 

 ever ridiculous,' he adds, ' the opinion must appear, 

 many great men have not been ashamed to adopt and 

 defend it. The industrious Goednrt has ventured to 

 ascribe the origin of bees to certain dunghill worms,* 

 and the learned De Mei joins with him in this opi- 

 nion; though neither of them had any observation to 

 ground their belief upon, but that of the external re- 

 semblance between bees and certain kinds of flies 

 (Sijrphidce) produced from those worms. The mis- 

 take of such authors should teach us,' he continues, 

 ' to use great caution in our determinations concern- 

 ing things which we have not thoroughly examined, 

 or at least to describe them with all the circum- 

 stances observable in them. Therefore, although 

 this opinion of bees issuing from the carcasses of 

 some other animals by the power of putrefaction, 

 or by a transposition of parts, be altogether absurd, 

 it has had, notwithstanding, many followers, who 

 must have in a manner shut their eyes in order to 

 embrace it. But whoever will attentively consider 

 how many requisites there are for the due hatching 

 of the bee's egg, and for its subsistence in the grub 

 state, cannot be at a loss for a clue to deliver him- 

 self out of that labyrinth of idle fancies and unsup- 

 ported fables, which, entangled with one another like 

 a Gordian knot, have even to this day obscured the 

 beautiful simplicity of this part of natural history. '| 



Redi was by no means satisfied with the first re- 

 sults of his experiments upon the flesh of snakes, for 



* The maggots of Eristalis tenax, Fabr. E. apiformiSj 

 Meigen, an(f other Syrphidce, well known in common sew- 

 ers by their long tails, like those of rats. 



i Swammerd. Book of Nature, i, 228. 



VOL. VI. I* 



