VI. 
Objections against my interpretation of the Bugoniu 
of the ancients. 
The only serious objection that may be urged against my 
identification of the oxen-born bee of the ancients with Hristalis 
(the mouche-abeille of Réaumur) is the fact that, in recent times, 
we have no instances on record of an Hristalis laying its eggs 
in the carcase of a large animal, except the single case, ob- 
served by Zetterstedt (p. 32). An eminent man of science, con- 
nected with one of the marine zoological stations, writes to 
me: ,When, in our laboratory we have dissected some big ani- 
mal, we are soon invaded by numerous Calliphorae, Luciliae and 
some Sarcophagae. We never saw an Hristalis among them, and 
yet, they frequently visit the outhouses of the laboratory, where 
the Homalomyia scalaris, Scatopse notata etc. also abound.* My 
answer to this objection, will be found in the explanation which 
I have given of the habits of Hristalis in Suppl. I: ,The larva 
of Hristalis, being aquatic, requires a pool of stagnant water 
containing putrescent organic matter. A carcase, left in the 
open air, is at once attacked by the ordinary carcase-loving 
flies Lucilia, Calliphora etc. During the second stage of putres- 
cence a pool of corrupt liquid is formed about the carcase, and 
then is the time for Hvistalis to appear.“ In the present age of 
sanitary police a carcase would never reach this stage, neither 
in a laboratory, nor in the open air. The only instance in point 
which I have discovered in the existing literature is the case of 
Zetterstedt, already quoted, which occurred in a distant and 
primitive country, Lapland. This single instance is the more 
instructive, as it was witnessed and described by a celebrated 
specialist in dipterology, who had no preoccupation whatever 
about the Bugonia, and merely related what he saw, The pas- 
sage concerns the northern species, Hristalis anthophorinus, and 
I reproduce it in the Latin original accompanied by a trans- 
lation: 
