b INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



• 



several species of flies were produced, giving some 

 countenance to the opinion of Aristotle, Pliny, Mouf- 

 fet, and others, that different flesh engenders different 

 flies, inheriting the disposition of the animal they are 

 bred from. He accordingly tried almost every 

 species of flesh, fish, and fowl, both raw and cooked, 

 and soon discovered (as he could not fail to do) that 

 the same maggots and flies were produced indis- 

 criminately in all. This ultimately led him to 

 ascertain that no maggots are ever generated except 

 from eggs laid by the parent flies: for when he 

 carefully covered up pieces of meat with silk or 

 paper sealed down with wax, no maggots were 

 seen; but the parent flies, attracted by the smell of 

 the covered meat, not unfrequently laid their eggs 

 on the outside of the paper or silk, the maggots 

 hatched from these dying, of course, for want of 

 nourishment. 



With respect to bees, it becomes even more absurd 

 to refer their generation to putrefaction, when we 

 consider that they uniformly manifest a peculiar 

 antipathy to dead carcasses. This was remarked so 

 long ago as the time of Aristotle and of Pliny ;'^ 

 and Varro asserts that bees never alight upon an 

 unclean place, nor upon any thing which emits an 

 unpleasant smell. This is strikingly exemplified in 

 their carrying out of the hive the bodies of their 

 companions who chance to die there; and in their 

 covering over with propolis the bodies of snails, 

 mice,! and other small animals which they cannot re- 

 move. J 



These facts, which are unquestionable, may at 

 first view appear to contradict the Scripture history 



** Aristotle, Hist. Animal, ix, 40. Pliny say§, ' Omnes car- 

 ne vescuntur, contra quam apes, quae nullum corpus attingunt.' 

 t Huish on Bees, p. 100. 

 I Insect Architecture, p. 109. 



