12 
continues: ,This story of Samson and his bees, misunderstood 
as it was, has undoubtedly given rise to the common ignorant 
craze that bees originate from lions, oxen and horses. The 
craze was probably confirmed by the sight of the great mass 
of worms which occur in such carcases in summer, the more 
so as these worms are somewhat (,einigermassen*) like the 
larvae of bees. This apparent resemblance has undoubtedly for- 
tified this error, which, ridiculous and groundless as it is, has 
found advocates even among the most learned men. The labo- 
rious Goedart has not hesitated to make bees breed from dung- 
worms, and the learned De Mey has shared his opinion, although 
what he took for a bee was nothing but a fly, which looked 
somewhat bee-like etc.‘ 
In a later part of his work (p. 256—257) Swammerdam 
gives a detailed description (with figures) of the three stages 
of Hristalis tenax. He notices (p. 257 at the bottom) that the 
fly has been frequently taken for a bee, and that Augerius 
Clutius (1) in his little work on bees, has denounced this error. 
He exonerates Goedart of his supposed mistake, and charges 
De Mey with it (as I have already explained above). 
It follows from these statements that Swammerdam was 
fully aware of the absurdity of the Bugonia-craze, but that he 
did not quite grasp the part played by /. tenax in it, and would 
not, even in the presence of sufficient evidence, give up his 
bias for a literal interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. In fact 
he connects the belief in the Bugonia with the story of the 
(1) THEODOR AUGER CLUTIUS, also called DIRCK CLUYT, Apothe- 
cary and Botanist in Leyden, at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of 
the next century. His book: On Bees (Vande Bien etc.) appeared in Leyden in 
1597 and had seven editions, the last in 1705. I borrow these statements from 
H. A. HAGEN’S, Bibliotheca entomologica, I, p. 133. 
1 have consulted the fifth edition (1648) which was kindly lent to me by 
the Grand Ducal Library in Carlsruhe. — Clutius also speaks of the Oestridae 
(p. 10). 
The ,Augerius“ (misprinted Augenius) referred to by VALLISNIERD 
Isperienze etc. p. 149; (1726), is evidently the same Clutius, 
