B. V.] THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS. 127 



becomes emaciated, and is dead by sunset, having lived but 

 one day ; for which cause it is called ephemerum. Most 

 animals which spring from caterpillars or worms, are first of 

 all enclosed in a web, and this is their nature. 



15. The wasps which are called ichneumons, which are 

 smaller than the others, kill the phalangia, and carry them 

 to a wall, or some other place with a hole in it ; and when 

 they have covered them over with mud, they oviposit there, 

 and the ichneumon wasps are produced from them. Many 

 of the coleoptera, and other small and anonymous creatures 

 make little holes in tombs or walls, and there deposit their 

 worms. 



16. The period of reproduction, from its commencement 

 to its conclusion, is generally completed in three or four 

 weeks. In the worms and worm-like creatures, three weeks 

 are usually sufficient, and four weeks are usually enough 

 for those which are oviparous. In one week from their 

 sexual intercourse, the growth of the ovum is completed. 

 In the remaining three weeks, those that produce by gene- 

 ration, hatch and bring forth their ova, as in the spiders, 

 and such like creatures. The metamorphoses generally 

 occupy three or four days, like the crisis of diseases. This 

 is the mode of generation in insects. 



17. They die from the shrivelling of their limbs, as large 

 animals do of old age. Those which are furnished with 

 wings have these organs drawn together in autumn. The 

 myopes die from an effusion of water in their eyes. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



1. ALL persons are not agreed as to the generation of bees, 

 for some say that they neither produce young, nor have 

 sexual intercourse; but that they bring their young from 

 other sources ; and some say that they collect them from 

 the flowers of the calyntrus, 1 and others from the flower of 

 the calamus. 2 Others again, say that they are found in the 

 flowers of the olive, and produce this proof, that the swarms 

 are most abundant when the olives are fertile. Other per- 

 sons affirm that they collect the young of the drones from 

 any of the substances we have named, but that the rulers 

 (queens) produce the young of the bees. 



' Honeysuckle. 2 Heed. 



