GENERATION OF INSECTS. II 



he elsewhere describes as probably nothini? more 

 than "animated scions of Zoocarpse " (propagules 

 animes des Zoocarpes).* It would be unprofitable 

 to g:o into any lengthened -discussion upon this 

 mysterious subject; and we have great doubts 

 whether the ocular demonstration by the microscope 

 would succeed except in the hands of a disciple of 

 the school. Even with naturalists, whose business 

 it is to deal with facts, the reason is often wonderfully 

 influenced by the imagination. 



But the question immediately before us happily 

 does not involve these recondite discussions ; for 

 if even pandorinia and other animalcules were proved 

 bfyond a doubt to originate in the play of chemical 

 affinities or galvanic actions — (a more refined pro- 

 cess, it must be confessed, than Kircher's chopped 

 snakes), it would not affect our doctrine that all 

 insects are hatched from eggs : for no naturalist of 

 the present day classes such animalcules among 

 insects. Leaving animalcules and zoophytes, there- 

 fore, out of the question, we have only to examine 

 such branches of the theory of spontaneous genera- 

 tion as seem to involve the propagation of genuine 

 insects, — like the fancies about putrefaction which 

 we have seen refuted. 



The notion that small insects, such as aphides 

 and the leaf-rolling caterpillars, are spread about, or 

 rather generated, by what is termed blight (possibly 

 from the Belgic blijikan, to strike with lightning), 

 is almost universally believed even by the most 

 intelligent, if they have not particularly studied the 

 habits of insects. Mr. Main, of Chelsea, an ingenious 

 and well-informed gardener and naturalist, describes 

 this as an " easterly wind, attended by a blue mist. 

 The latter is called a blight, and many people 

 imagine that the aphides are wafted through tlie 

 * Diet. Class, Art. Pandoriuoes. 



