256 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



more fanciful opinion that the eggs were fecundated 

 by some subtle effluvia, or aura, which he imagined 

 he could distinguish himself by its peculiar odour. 

 In his case this was the more singular, as he rarely 

 travels out of the path of legitimate induction, and 

 generally rests satisfied with recording facts. He 

 appears to have been misled by trusting to the 

 analogy of the experiments of Harvey respecting 

 some other animals ; * and had he lived in our own 

 day, he might have taken similar advantage of the 

 recent ones of Treviranus and Tiedemann. He also 

 refers us to * seeds committed to the earth, or being 

 only on its surface, which are affected by the moisture 

 of the soil ; ' but, from his concluding remarks, he 

 appears to distrust his own theory. ' God,' he says, 

 * even in those minute insects and their parts, has 

 concealed from the incurious eye stupendous mira- 

 cles ; nor is it difficult to discover and illustrate those 

 things, provided one sedulously applies to their in- 

 vestigation. Consider, therefore, what progress the 

 acute and sagacious may make in these inquiries, if 

 they will industriously search into them. What 

 I have hitherto described and exhibited are, indeed, 

 but light shadows of the things themselves : it would 

 be easy for ingenious persons to discover and lay 

 open all these things thoroughly, and more perfectly, 

 to the glory of the great God. As for myself, I do 

 most willingly confess that my capacity is so slender, 

 that I am able to behold the works of God only at 

 a distance ; nay, the more frequently I view them, 

 the more I am convinced of my ignorance, and 

 I know my own weakness.' t 



Hattarf, on the other hand, as well as Schirach, 

 supposed the queen-bee to be self-impregnated ; for 

 having excluded a queen from all access to the males, 



* Exercit. de Generatione Animal, p. 228, &c. 

 t Book of Nature, i, 223. 



