142 [Berliner Entomolog. Zeitschrift Bd. XL. Jahrg. 1895, Heft I.] 



Eristalis tenax 

 in Chinese and Japanese literature, 



by C. R. Osten Sacken. 



Since the publication of my Essay „On the Oxen-born bees etc.'' 

 (Heidelberg, 1894), my distinguished Japanese correspondent in Lon- 

 don, Mr. Knmagusu Minakata, has comniunicated to me many 

 new, and very interesting, facts discovered by him in the Chinese 

 and Japanese literatures concerning the fly Eristalis tenax in 

 connection with the honey-bee. I deem it useful to give a general 

 account of the results hitherto obtained by him in bis researches on 

 that subject. 



For centuries the belief has been prevalent in China, and niay 

 persist even now, that bees use human urine in the preparation of 

 honey, and Mr. K. M. very naturally attributes this error to the 

 usual confusion between the bee and Eristalis. The people ob- 

 served specimens of Einstalis crawling about out-houses etc., and, 

 taking them for bees, arrived at that erroneons conclusion. The 

 earliest mention of this superstition in Chinese literature which Mr. 

 K.M. found quoted, occurs in an ancient author Teou Hung-King 

 (452—536 A.D.) vvho was a Tauist recluse, and author of the work: 

 „Other Records from the Illustrious Physicians" (in Chinese: Ming-i 

 Pieh-luh, in seven volumes). Tauists believe in bis resurrection; he 

 is probably the oldest historically authentie naturalist in China, and is 

 Said to have doubled the number of the 365 medical drugs mentioned 

 in the book of Shin Hung, the mythological emperor, whom tradi- 

 tion considers as the founder of Chinese medicine. The passage from 

 Teou Hung-King's work, as reproduced in Tokusliin Kaibara's 

 „Materia Medica of Japan", 1708, Book XIV, p. 15, runs as follows: 



„Generally speaking bees are all in need of human urine in 

 honey-making. All flowers are prepared by them with human urine 

 to ripen honey; the process being quite like that of „I" — making 

 with malt by men." ') „Thus, if my view be corrcct," adds Mr. K. M. 



') „I" is a sort of jelly-like sweetmeat, made of rice, with an 

 addition of malt. It is called in Japan Arne, and I hear is now im- 

 ported from Japan to Germany, where the physicians use it for feeding 

 invalids. (K. M.) 



