— 205 — 



The climax of the absiirdities of the spontaneous generation 

 Avas reached when it was contended that the vertebral cohimn 

 of a dead man could sometimes be converted into a suake: 



Suiit (|ui cuni olauso putretacta esi spiim sei/ulcro 

 Mmari credant humanas an^ue meduUas, (1) 



Such are the words which Ovid (Mei. XV, 390) puts into 

 the mouth of Pythagoras. The same myth is mentioned in 

 Phitarch (Cleomenes, at the end); I reproduce the passage 

 here, because it has also reference to the Bugonia: « A few 

 days later, those who watched over the body of Cleomenes 

 fastened to the cross, saw a large snake coiled around his 

 head, as if to prevent birds of prey from resting upon it... 

 The inhabitants of Alexandria went to the place to worshij) 

 Cleomenes as a ìiero and a son of God, until wiser men ex- 

 plained to them that just as bees are boni from dead cows, wasps 

 from dead horses, and dung-beetles from dead asses, snakes 

 grow ont from the human body, when the fluid in the verte- 

 brae coagulates and is hardened. This observation caused the 

 ancients to revere snakes, above ali animals, as being con- 

 nected with heroes. » 



I have already noticed above (p. 106) that the Greek author 

 who was the best informed about bees (Aristotle) never men- 

 tions the Bugonìa, although he was a believer in spontaneous 

 generation. In the two works in which he treats of bees, the 

 « History of Animals » and « On the origin of animals », 

 not a word is to be found about the origin of bees from oxen. 

 The celebrated Italiau naturalist Ulysses Aldrovandi, who 

 wrote about two thousand years after Aristotle is astonished 

 at this omission. In his volume: De animaUbus insectis (Bolo- 

 gna, 1602), p. 58, he saj^s: « Mirum insuper cur Aristoteles 

 e bove nasci (apes) etiam non scripserit, quin nescierit; nam 

 Plinius Virgilium citat, non Aristotelem. » (It is strange 



(1) (Translatioìi) « Some people believe that when a human spine is decaying in 

 the grave, the marrow changes into a snake. " 



