61 
with, even in our days, in out-of-the-way localities, where there 
is no police to interfere with the natural decay of animals. 
It may not be amiss here to quote the passage of Redi 
(Esperienze p. 56) where he says that J.B. Sperling, a very 
sagacious and zealous Zoologist, after visiting the seat of a 
great pestilence that had occurred in Wiirttemberg among cattle, 
averred that he had never met there with a single case of the 
production of artificial bees (api fattizie). But Mr. Sperling may 
have been shrewd enough to distinguish an Fristalis from a 
bee; he may have seen many Hristales about the carcases, with- 
out recognizing in them oxen-born bees. 
It remains for me to say a few words about Samson’s story. 
Two propositions must be well understood in this connection: 
1°. That, even should it be conclusively proved, that Sam- 
son’s bees had built a comb inside of the lion’s body (either in 
the state of a carcase or that of a skeleton), such proof would 
merely confute my interpretation of this case alone, and would 
not affect in the least my interpretation of the Bugonia of the 
ancients, which rests upon an entirely different set of argu- 
ments. 
2°. That, for those who study the Holy Scriptures from the 
historical and literary point of view, my interpretation of the 
Bugonia affords a useful test of the truth of Samson’s story: 
I mean to say, a proof that the story of the lion is not a mere 
myth, or the invention of a literate, but that it is based upon 
an actual occurrence, somewhat embellished, as often occurs, 
by the fancy of the narrator. The principal feature of the story 
is a natural phenomenon, related in all simplicity, but wrongly 
interpreted (for the true interpretation only came to be known 
some centuries later), and such a feature is not a subject for 
invention. 
As for other arguments in favour of my interpretation of 
the story, I cannot do better than introduce here a translation 
of the article, published by Prof. Adalbert Merx in 1887, and 
of which I have already made mention (p. 18). 
