42 
the orifices of the body (blood being so much moisture) etc. — 
are as many precautions to prevent dessication and to quicken 
as much as possible the process of decay. After three weeks 
of seclusion, the opened shed would contain nearly full-grown 
larvae. The fact of not seeing the flies enter, and then finding 
living larvae in that closed room, naturally confirmed the people’s 
belief in spontaneous generation. [I introduce here the conti- 
nuation of Florentinus’s account (which, for brevity’s sake, I 
had omitted before, on p. 8): ,When the shed is opened, small 
white animalcules are seen, resembling each other, motionless ; 
then they are observed to grow little by little, to develop wings, 
and to take the color of bees; the wings are at first short and 
tremulous, unfit for flight, the limbs are weak; finally desirous 
of light, the insects start and knock against the windows, push- 
ing each other.“ 
I omit a passage about the king, emerging from the brain, 
the other flies crowding about him etc., evidently superfetations 
suggested by the recollection of the behaviow: of swarming 
bees. 
Virgil’s description of the process agrees in the main with 
that of the Geoponica. The long episode of Aristaeus (Geor- 
gica IV, 281-—558) (1) consists of three parts. In the first 
(v. 281—314) Virgil announces that in case of some disaster 
with the bees, and when there is no prospect of obtaining a 
new brood (v. 281-282), then is the time to reveal (pandere) 
the glorious art of the Arcadian master Aristaeus, by means 
of which bees have often been produced from the putrid blood 
(insincerus cruor) of slain oxen (v. 283—285). He intends to 
tell the whole tale from its very beginning (v. 285). The in- 
vention was discovered in Lower Egypt, and the whole country 
hibition which Virgil seems to have forgotten when in verse 542 he makes 
Proteus tell Aristaeus to cut the throats and the bullocks for that purpose.“ 
(J. Conington, Commentary on the Georgics I, 357). 
(1) For all the quotations from Virgil I use the edition of Ribbeck. A 
translation of this passage of Virgil by the poet Rucellai will be found in 
Redi, p. 54. 
