4 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



Him, much reluctant, with o'erpow'ring force, 

 They bind; his mouth and nostrils stop, and all 

 The avenues of respiration close; 

 And buffet him to death: his hide no wound 

 Receives; his battered entrails burst within. 

 Thus spent they leave him; and beneath his sides 

 Lay shreds of boughs, fresh lavender and thyme. 

 This, when soft zephyr's breeze first curls the wave, 

 And prattling swallows hang their nests on high. 

 Meanwhile the juices in the tender bones 

 Heated ferment; and, wondrous to behold, 

 Small animals, in clusters, thick are seen, 

 Short of their legs at first: on filmy wings, 

 Humming, at length they rise; and more and more 

 Fan the thin air; 'till, numberless as drops 

 Pour'd down in rain from summer clouds, they fly.' 



TRAPP'S VIRGIL, Georg. iv, 369. 



Columella, a Roman writer on rural affairs, after 

 directing in what manner honey is to be taken from 

 a hive by killing the bees, says, that if the dead bees 

 be kept till spring, and then exposed to the sun among 

 the ashes of the tig-tree, properly pulverised, they may 

 be restored to life. 



These fancies have evidently originated from mis- 

 taking certain species of flies (Syrphi, Bombylii, 

 &c,) for bees, which, indeed, they much resemble in 

 general appearance ; though they have only two 

 wings, and short antenna?, while all bees have four 

 wings, and long antennae. Neither the flies nor the 



b 



Comparative figures of a bee (a) and a syrplms (b). 



bees are produced by putrefaction; but as the flies 

 are found about animal bodies in a state of decom- 

 position, the ancients fell into an error which accurate 

 observation alone could explode. The maggots of 



