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ON THE SO-CALLED BUGONIA 



OF THE ANCIENTS AND ITS RELATION TO 

 ERISTALIS TEIVAX, 



A TWO-WINGED INSECT 



OxEN (1) are very useful animals, as mudi 

 in agriculture, as in carrying burdeus. 

 They produce milk, they adorn altars, t-hey 

 embellish feasts ; tliey give good food. Even 

 dead oxen are praiseworthy and excellent, 

 because from tbeir remains originate bees, 

 the most laborious of insects, which provide 

 men with honey, the best and sweetest 

 nourishment. 



Aelianus, On the Nature of Animals, 



Book II, 57. (between the 2.*^ and 



3.'' Century A. D.). 



Introduction. 



For more tlian two thousand years a superstition lias 

 been prevalent in the minds of tlie masses, as well as in 

 books, to the effect tliat, besides tlie usuai production of h.o- 

 ney-bees in hives, they originated by spontaneous generation 

 from carcasses of dead animals, and principally from those of 

 oxen. Thus arose in Greece the term Bugonìa (from |3o0$, an 

 ox, and ^ovn, progeny), as well as the expression hugenes me- 

 lissae, taurigenae apes, that is, oxen-born bees, in the Greek 



(1) For want of a better expression, I use u oxen « in accordance with Webster's 

 Dictionary (vmder u Ox "): u The name Ox is never applied to the cow, or female of 

 the domestic kind. Oxen, in the plural, may comprehend both male and female. " 



