JEWISH TRADITION. 75 



it was a caterpillar, it was brown, marked with a line of yellow 

 spots on each side, and covered with hairs. It lived then 

 upon the nettle, and delighted in leaves which it no longer 

 cares about, but which it will take care to return to when the 

 time shall come for it to lay its eggs, in order that the little 

 caterpillars which issue from them may find at their birth a 

 home and food that will suit them. 



How is it possible to paint all that I see passing before me, 

 all that moves in the air, and also all that I cannot see ] 

 Through a little space between the leaves of the oak, the sun 

 darts a white, brilliant ray, and myriads of little flying 

 creatures sport in that ray. They are so small that they are 

 no longer visible if a cloud for a moment obscures the sun 

 and extinguishes its beam. 



Myriads of animals have been discovered in a drop of water, 

 by means of the microscope, because a drop of water can be 

 kept steady under the glass of the lens. If we were able, in 

 a similar manner, to isolate a drop of air, it is more than 

 probable we should perceive thousands of insects which escape 

 our sight. There are ichneumons, — we have seen them, — 

 which lay their egg in the egg of a butterfly. Who can 

 venture to say that the egg of the ichneumon is not pierced 

 in its turn by another insect which we do not see! 



We should have been wrong, before the invention of the 

 microscope, in denying the existence of all the otherwise im- 

 perceptible insects which have been revealed by its means. 

 I would not dare to assert that there are not other tribes 

 which the microscope even cannot show us. Who knows if 

 those maladies which regularly prevail in certain seasons, or 

 which aifect us irregularly at distant periods, as plagues and 

 epidemics, are not caused by insects which we respire in the 

 air? 



We find it related in an old collection of Jewish traditions, 

 that Titus boasted of having conquered the God of the Jews, 

 at Jerusalem. Then a terrible voice was heard, which said : 

 " Wretched man, the smallest of my creatures shall triumph 

 over thee." A fly or gnat glided into the nostril of the 

 emperor, and penetrated to his brain. There, during seven 

 years, it fed upon the brain ; no art, no medicine could dislodge 

 it. After horrible sufferings Titus died. His head was 



