38 NATURAL HISTORY. fcH. II. 



come to speak with those husbandmen, who, beyond 

 Lambesk, were reported to have been so affrighted 

 at the falling of the said rain, that they left their 

 work, and ran as fast as their legs could carry them 

 into the adjacent houses ; whereupon he found that 

 it was a fable which was reported touching those 

 husbandmen." 



Fanciful theories were, however, as much in vogue 

 then as in the present day, for Gassendi proceeds : 

 " Nor was he pleased that the naturalists should re- 

 fer this kind of rain to vapours drawn up out of red 

 earth aloft into the air, which, congealing afterward 

 into liquor, fall down in this form ; because such va- 

 pours as are drawn aloft, by heat ascend without 

 colour, as we may know by the alone example of 

 red roses, out of which the vapours that, arise by 

 heat are congealed into transparent water. He was 

 less pleased with the common people and some di- 

 vines, who judged that it was the work of the devils 

 and witches who had killed innocent young children ; 

 for this he accounted a mere conjecture, possibly 

 also injurious to the goodness and providence of 

 God. In the meanwhile an accident happened out 

 of which he conceived he had collected the true 

 cause thereof ; for some months before he shut up 

 in a box a certain palmer-worm which he had found, 

 rare for its bigness and form, which, when he had 

 forgotten, he heard a buzzing in the box, and when 

 he opened it, found the palmer-worm, having cast 

 its coat, to be turned into a very beautiful butterfly, 

 which presently flew away, leaving on the bottom 

 of the box a red drop as broad as an ordinary sous 

 or shilling ; and because this happened about the 

 beginning of the same month, and about the same 

 time an incredible multitude of butterflies were ob- 

 served flying in the air, he was therefore of opinion 

 that such kind of butterflies, resting upon the walls, 

 had there shed such like drops, and of the same big- 

 ness : wherefore he went the second time, and 



