GENERATION OF INSECTS. 5 



blow-flies, as Swammerdam remarks, so often founil 

 ill the carcasses of animals in summer, "some- 

 what resemble those produced by the egc^s of 

 bees. However ridiculous,'' lie adds, " the opinion 

 must appear, many great men have not been 

 ashamed to adopt and defend it. The industrious 

 Goedart has ventured to ascribe tlie origin of 

 bees to certain dunghill worms *, and the learned 

 De Mei joins with him in this opinion ; though 

 neither of them had any observation to ground their 

 belief upon, but that of the external resemblance 

 between bees and certain kinds of flies {Syrphidce) 

 produced from those worms. The mistake of such 

 authors should teach us," he continues, " to use 

 great caution in our determinations concerning 

 things which we have not thoroughly examined, or 

 at least to describe them with all the circumstances 

 observable in them. Therefore, although this opi- 

 nion of bees issuing from the carcasses of some othet 

 animals by the power of putrefaction, or by a trans- 

 position 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 requi- 

 sites 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 himself out of that laby- 

 rinth of idle fancies and unsupported 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 f." 



Redi was by no means satisfied with the first results 

 of his experiments upon the flesh of snakes, for several 



* The maggots of Eristalis tenax, Famsi. E. api/ormis, 

 Mkiokn, and other Syrphidcr, well known in common sewers by 

 their long tails, like those of rats. 



f Swammerd. Book of Nature, i. 228. 



11 3 



