— 195 — 



laborious Goedart lias uot liesitated to make bees breed from 

 duug-Vorms, and the learued De Mey has sliared liis opinion, 

 althougli what he took for a bee was nothing but a fl}', which 

 looked somewhat bee-like etc. » 



In a later part of his work (1. e. p. 256-257) Swammerdam 

 gives a detailed description (with fìgures) of the three stages 

 of Eristalis tenax. He notices (L e. p. 257 at the bottoni) that 

 the fly has been frequently taken for a bee, and that x\uge- 

 rius Chitius (1) in his little work on bees, has denounced this 

 error. He exouerates Goedart of his supposed mistake, and 

 charges De Mey with it (as I have already explained above). 



It foUows from these statements that Swammerdam was 

 fully aware of the absurdity of the Bugonìa-cràze, but that 

 he did not quite grasp the part played by E. tenax in it, 

 and would not, even in the presence of sufiìcient evidence, 

 give up his bias for a literal interpretation of the Holy 

 Scriptures. In fact he connects the belief in the Biigotiia with 

 the story of the bees of Samson, as if the ancients (Greeks 

 and Eomans) knew anything aboiit Samson! 



Redi, a contemporary of Swammerdam, stood on the sanie 

 leve! with him on the qnestion of the Bugonìa. Both were 

 adversaries of spontaneous generation, and nevertheless both 

 misuiiderstood the story of Samson. Redi {Esperienze etc. p. 58) 

 accepts the interpretation of Bochart. And with regard to the 

 relation of bee-like flies, and especially of E. tenax to the 

 Bugonìa^ both seem to have been in the dark. My iieapolitan 



(1) Theodor Auger Clutius, also called Dirck Cluyt, Apotliecary and Botanist in 

 Leyden, at tlie end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the next centuxy. His hook: 

 On Bees (Vaude Bien eto.) appeared in Leyden in 1597 and had seven editions, the 

 last in 1705. 1 borrow these statements from H. A. Hagen's, Bibliotheca entomologica, 

 I, p. 133. 



I have consulted the fifth edition (1648) which was kindly lent to me by the Grand 

 Ducal Librarj' in Carlsruhe. — Clutius also speaks of the Oestridae (p. 10). 



The u Augerius " (misprinted ^»</chù(«) referred to by Vallisnièri, Esperienze etc. 

 p. 149; (1726), is evidently the sanie Chitius. 



