BOOK XI. xxxvii. II2-XL, ii6 



maggot developes, and three days latev it becomes 

 a caterpillar, which as days are added grows larger; 

 it becomes motionless, with a hard skin, and only moves 

 when touched, being covered with a cobweb growth — 

 at this stage it is called a chrysaHs. Then it bursts 

 its covering and flies out as a butterfly." 



XXXVIII. In this way some creatures are othermodes 

 generated from rain in the earth and some even in o/tmec^.^''" 

 wood. For not only is the goatmotli caterpillar born 

 in wood, but also the horse-fly springs from wood, and 

 other creatures, wherever there is excessive damp, 

 (XXXIX) just as tape-worms thirty feet in length, 

 sometimes even more, grow inside a human being, 

 Again worms ^ are born in the flesh of dead bodies 

 and also in the hair of living people, a foul growth that 

 caused the death of the dictator Sulla and also of one 

 of the most famous of Greece poets, Alcman. This 

 indeed also infests birds, and actually kills pheasants 

 unless they sprinkle themselves with dust ; and of 

 hairy animals it is beheved that only the ass and sheep 

 are immune from this evil, They ''' also breed in one 

 kind of clothing especially, woollen made from sheep 

 that have been killed by ^volves, Also I find in the 

 authorities that some springs of water in which 

 we bathe are specially productive of this kind 

 of creature ; inasmuch as even wax generates 

 what is beHeved to be the smallest of animals. 

 Others*^ again are generated out of dirt by the rays 

 of the sun, creatures that hop with a frisk of their 

 hind legs, and others out of dam.p dust, that fly 

 about in caves, 



XL, There is an animal belono-inff to the same siood- 

 season that always lives with its head fixed in the maggouT 

 blood of a host, and consequently goes on swelUng, i-eech^s. 



503 



