8 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



propagation of bees, equally absurd, though much 

 more poetical. Virgil tells us that, 



From herbs and fragrant flowers, with their mouths 

 They cull their young. Georg. iv. 



Aristotle* had long before stated, and De Monfort 

 in modern times repeated the assertion,! that the 

 olive, the cerinthus, and some other plants, have the 

 property of generating young bees from their purest 

 juices. We may well say, with Lactantius, that 

 ' they make shipwreck of their wisdom, who adopt 

 without judgment the opinions of their ancestors, 

 and allow themselves to be led by others like a flock 

 of sheep. 'J Modern naturalists, being accustomed 

 to minute accuracy in their observations, can both 

 disprove and readily explain most of those erroneous 

 fancies, by tracing the causes which led, and may still 

 lead, inaccurate observers into such mistakes. 



It would have been well if such unfounded fancies 

 had rested here; but philosophical theorists, both of 

 ancient and modern times, have promulgated dreams 

 much more extravagant. The ancients taught that 

 the newly-formed earth (hatched as some said from 

 an egg) clothed itself with a green down like that 

 on young birds, and soon after men began to sprout 

 up from the ground as we now see mushrooms do. 

 The refined Athenians were so firmly convinced of 

 their having originally sprung up in this manner, 

 that they called themselves 4 Earth-born' (Erich- 

 thonii), and wore golden tree-hoppers (Cicadai) in 

 their hair, erroneously supposing these insects to 

 have a common origin with themselves. Lucretius 



* Hist. Animal, v, 22. 



t Le Portrait de la Mouche a Miel. Liege, 1646. 



t Divin. Instit. ii, 7; in Redi's motto. Shepherds on the 

 continent lead their sheep, as those of Israel did. See Mena- 

 geries, vol. i, p. 81. 



The Cicadae do not deposit their eggs in the earth, but on 

 trees, &c. See Insect Architecture, chap. vii. 



