Li 
scoffs at the ignorance of those who, relying on the scriptural 
text, admit two kinds of animal-bred bees, and attacks espe- 
cially Moufet on that matter: ,Nec audiendus Mufetus Anglus 
qui in Insectorum Theatro alias apes scribit esse leontogenes, 
alias tawrogenes.“ (Translation: Nor is the Englishman Moufet. to 
be heard, when in his Theatrwm Insectorum he distinguishes 
lion-born from oaen-born bees.) In order to explain the appea- 
rance of bees about Samson’s lion, Bochart establishes three 
propositions : 
1.° Although it is stated in the text that the bees were 
in the carcase, it is not stated that they were born there (,apes 
in leonis corpore fuisse repertas, non tamen ibi natas‘). 
2.° That between the killing of the lion and the finding 
of his remains a whole year had elapsed, because the expression 
yafter a while* (post diem) in Hebrew must be understood to 
mean a whole year. A host of authorities are adduced by 
Bochart to sustain this strange proposition. 
3.° That at the end of a year the corpse was reduced to 
the state of a clean skeleton, in which the bees could take 
shelter without repugnance, the bees being clean animals.’ 
But Bochart does not explain how those cleanly bees which 
could not stand a rotten lion, could be born from rotten oxen? 
The mental attitude of Bochart in this instance is very strange, 
and exemplifies the immense sway the ancients exercised over 
European learning even in the second half of the XVI" century. 
He blindly adopts the Bugonia of the ancients, but criticises 
Samson’s story not because he considers it absurd, but be- 
cause nothing is found about the origin of bees from lions in 
the ancient authors. Réaumur (Mém. I, p. 28) was right in say- 
ing: ,It was believed at that time that every kind of truth 
could be recovered in the writings of the ancients, that the 
ancients knew everything, understood everything... The ob- 
servation of nature seemed to have no other aim than to con- 
firm what had been found in the ancients ete.“ (comp. Supple- 
ment. IIT). 
