PAPILIONID^ — BUTTERFLIES. 219 



was commonly reported to have fallen about the beginning 

 of July ; great drops thereof were plainly to be seen, both 

 in the city itself, upon the walls of the church-yard of the 

 church, which is near the city wall, and upon the city walls 

 themselves; also upon the walls of villages, hamlets, and 

 towns, for some miles round about; for in the firsL place, he 

 went himself to see those wherewith the stones were colored, 

 and did what he could to come to speak with those husband- 

 men, who, beyond Lambesk, were reported to have been 

 affrighted at the falling of said rain, that they left their 

 work, and ran as fast as their legs could carry them into the 

 adjacent houses. Whereupon, he found that it was a fable 

 that was reported, touching those husbandmen. Nor was 

 he pleased that naturalists should refer this kind of rain to 

 vapours drawn up out of red earth aloft in the air, which 

 congealing afterwards into liquor, fall down in this form ; 

 because such vapours as are drawne aloft by heat, ascend 

 without color, as we may know by the alone example of red 

 roses, out of which the vapours that arise by heac are con- 

 gealed into transparent water. He was less pleased with 

 the common people, and some divines, who judged that it was 

 the work of the devils and witches who had killed innocent 

 young children ; for this he counted a mere conjecture, possi- 

 bly also injurious to the goodness and providence of God. 



"In the mean while an accident happened, out o^^ which he 

 conceived he had collected the true cause thereof. For, some 

 months before, he shut up in a box a certain palmer- worm 

 which he had found, rare for its bigness and form ; which, when 

 he haJ forgotten, he heard a buzzing in the box, and when he 

 opened it, found the palmer-worm, having cast its coat, to 

 be turned into a beautiful Butterfly, which presently flew 

 away, leaving in the bottom of the box a red drop as broad 

 as an ordinary sous or shilling ; and because this happened 

 about the beginning of the same month, and about the same 

 time an incredible multitude of Butterflies were observed 

 flying in the air, he was therefore of opinion that such kind 

 of Butterflies resting on the walls had there shed such like 

 drops, and of the same bigness. Whereupon, he went the 

 second time, and found, by experience, that those drops 

 were not to be found on the house-tops, nor upon the round 

 sides jf the stones which stuck out, as it would liave hap- 

 pened, if blood had fallen from the sky, but rather where 

 the stones were somewhat hollowed, and in holes, where 



