556 



NA TURE 



[April 12, 1 694 



have arisen from their having been seen carrying their 

 pupae (or, in common talk, "ant-eggs'"). But a case 

 which nearer concerns our present subject is that of the 

 distant islands, upon which, as many Arabic writers 

 gravely assured us, grew trees bearing fruit resembling 

 human heads, which cry out "Wak-wak" at sunrise 

 and sunset. What could be made of such a story ? One 

 fine day Mr. Wallace landed in the Aru Islands, and 

 found that the Birds of Paradise were in the habit of 

 settling on the trees in flocks, about sunrise, uttering this 

 very ':ry. So the mystery was cleared up, though it is 

 quite possible that Mr. Wallace himself may have been 

 unaware of the existence of the legend when he put the 

 explanation on rec rd. 



Everyone must be well aware that the ancients believed 

 that bees either established themselves, or were pro- 

 duced spontaneously in dead carcases. The two most 

 familiar instances are to be found in the story of Samson 

 (Judges, ch. xiv.), and in Virgil's Georgics iv. ; but 

 there are many other references to it in various authors, 

 many of them of good repute, down to a very recent 

 period. But with the dawn of a more scientific age the 

 idea of bees being produced from carcases was rejected ; 

 and the Biblical narrative was interpreted to mean that 

 the bees had made their nest in a dried-up carcase or 

 skeleton. As the Septuagint says expressly that Samson 

 found the bees and honey in the mouth of the lion, this 

 explanation might not perhaps have appeared so very 

 unreasonable, in default of a better. But several writers 

 suggested that in cases where the spontaneous generation 

 of bees from carcases was positively asserted, flesh flies 

 may have been mistaken for bees ; and in the pamphlet 

 before us, which has suggested our own remarks. Baron 

 Osten-Sacken, the eminent dipterist, has given a long 

 account of the popular idea of " Bugonia," or the pro- 

 duction of bees from the carcases of oxen, and puts 

 forth what certainly appears to be the correct explana- 

 tion. " The original cause of this delusion lies in the 

 fact that a very common fly, scientifically called Eristalis 

 tenax (popularly the drone fly), lays its eggs upon car- 

 cases of animals, that its larvse develop within the 

 putrescent mass, and finally change into a swarm of 

 flies which in their shape, hairy clothing, and colour, 

 look exactly like bees, although they belong to a totally 

 different order of insects. Bees belong to the order 

 Hymeiioptera, and have four wings ; the female is pro- 

 vided with a sting at the end of the body. The fly 

 Eristalis belongs to the order Diptera, has only two 

 wings, and no sting.'' 



This thesis Osten-Sacken works out in great detail, 

 quoting or referring to a large number of authors. 

 Among other interesting points, he calls attention to 

 another classical notion that 7vasps were produced from 

 the carcases of horses. These supposed wasps he 

 identifies with Hclopiiilus, a wasp-like genus of flies not 

 far removed from Eristalis. Thus the one error 

 illustrates and explains the other in a singularly ap- 

 posite manner. As regards Samson, Osten-Sacken re- 

 marks, "The riddle . . . affords the proof of another 

 fact, that the belief in the Bugotiia was current among 

 the people at that time, because, without that sub- 

 stratum, the riddle would not have had any meaning." 



Osten-Sacken concludes his pamphlet with a detailed 

 account of Eristalis tenax. The fly appears to be com- 

 mon in almost all parts of the Old World (and has 

 latterly been introduced into America, also), so that the 

 story of the Bugonia could easily have originated 

 spontaneously (even if the bees themselves do not) in 

 any country. Indeed, in all probability the story may 

 have sprung up independently in more than one part of 

 the world. 



Baron Osten-Sacken has lived much in America, and 

 is usually in the habit of writing in English to whatever 

 journal he addresses his observations ; and his present 



NO. 1276, VOL. 4q] 



interesting pamphlet is no exception. It will be seen 

 that he writes not for entomologists only, but for scholars 

 and literary men ; and we have not attempted to do more 

 than give a brief sketch of a critical essay which, to be 

 appreciated, must be read in its entirety. But we cannot 

 now do better than quote the Baron's concluding 

 remarks. 



"Except the silkworm and the honey-bee, I hardly 

 know of any insect that can show an historical record 

 equal to that of Eristalis tenax. The record begins in 

 the dusk of prehistoric times, and continues up to the 

 present date. Ir. its earliest days E. tenax appears like a 

 myth, a misunderstood and unnamed being, praised for 

 qualities which it never possessed, a theme for mytho- 

 logy m prose and poetry, later on, the bubble of its 

 glory having burst, it gradually settles into a kind of 

 commensalism with man, it obtains from him 'a local 

 habitation and a name'; it joins the Anglo-Saxon race 

 in its immense colonial development, it vies with it in 

 prodigies of fecundity, and at present renders hitherto 

 unrecognised services in converting 'atrocious stuff' 

 into pure and clean living matter ! 



" I close this chapter on the Bugotiia-cr&zt with 

 the moral of it, contained in another sentence from 

 Goethe : — 



' Man sieht nur was man weiss.' " 



W. F. KiRBY. 



CHARLES EDWARD BROWNS EQUARD. 



THIS distinguished physiologist and physician was 

 born on April 8, 1817, at Port Louis, Mauritius. 

 His father, Edward Brown, of Philadelphia, was of Irish 

 origin, and his mother was of a French family which had 

 been settled for some tiine at the " Isle of France." His 

 early education was carried on in his native island, 

 where at Port Louis there was and is a most excellent 

 college for literature and science ; but wishing to study 

 for the medical profession, the young Charles Edward 

 was sent, in about his twentieth year of age, to Paris, 

 where he adopted a surname composed of his two 

 patronymics. 



In 1840 he obtained the M.D. degree at Paris, and as 

 a pupil of Claude Bernard's, he followed closely the 

 brilliant researches of his master, and with a boundless 

 enthusiasm he commenced the study of nerve physiology, 

 which he continued with but brief periods of intermission 

 for the next fifty years of his life. By the accidents of his 

 birth he became from his earliest years equally proficient 

 in both the English and French tongues ; but though an 

 Englishman by birth, he always seemed to regard France 

 as his home, and Paris as his resting-place. Owing in 

 part to Brown-Sequard's facility of writing both Fiench 

 and English, his various papers on the functions of the 

 sympathetic nerves and ganglia soon made his views 

 known to a large circle of inquirers, and in 1S58 he was 

 invited to deliver a course of six lectures at the Royal 

 Coflege of Surgeons, in Lincoln's-Inn Fields. .About 

 this period, also, a number of the younger physicians and 

 surgeons of Dublin persuaded him to come as far v/est 

 as Dublin, to repeat this course, but at that time no col- 

 lege in the Irish capital was found willing to open its 

 doors to the experimental physiologist, and the lectures 

 were delivered in the back room of a concert hall. For the 

 first ten or twelve years after taking his doctor's degree 

 the struggle for life was somewhat arduous ; his line of 

 research was not productive of an income, and the 

 pecuniary rewards for scientific writing or for scientific 

 reports was excessively small. The writer calls to mind 

 a visit paid to Brown-Sequard at his lodgings in Paris ; 

 the two rooms occupied by him were just under the sky, 

 and their chief furniture consisted of books, pamphlets, 

 and writing paper. 



