8 
not to shed any blood; let all the orifices, mouth, eyes, nose etc. be stopped up 
with clean and fine linen, impregnated with pitch; let a quantity of thyme be 
strewed under the reclining animal, and then let windows and doors be closed 
and covered with a thick coating of clay, to prevent the access of air or wind. 
Three weeks later let the house be opened, and let light and fresh air get ac- 
cess to it, except from the side from which the wind blows strongest. After 
eleven days you will find the house full of bees, hanging together in clusters, 
and nothing left of the ox but horns, bones and hair“ etc. (This passage is 
reproduced in Aldrovandi, p. 58; there is also a mention in Redi, p. 53.) 
All these processes, ridiculous and preposterous as they 
seem, for obtaining bees, are nevertheless perfectly rational 
methods for procuring, not the honey-bee, but the oxen-born 
bee, Hristalis tenaz. I have subjected them to a critical exami- 
nation the result of which is too long to be inserted here, and 
for this reason, is relegated to my Supplement I. 
Such vagaries would have been avoided, if the people, from 
the very beginning, had known how to distinguish a honey-bee 
from a bee-like fly. Until this knowledge was forthcoming there 
was no reason for not believing in the Bugonia. 
Aristotle (1) knew that four-winged insects have the sting 
in the tail, and the two-winged ones in the front of the head; 
and for this reason, if he ever came in contact with Fristalis 
tenax, he would have recognized a fly, and not a bee, in it. — 
At any rate, although he was a believer in spontaneous gene- 
ration, he never mentioned the Bugonia in his works. 
But after Aristotle, for a period of about twenty centuries, 
the question of the Bugonia remained in abeyance, and the be- 
lief was accepted even by men of learning. I will show in the 
(1) ARISTOTELES, Hist. Anim. IV, 7, 4: ,The winged ones among insects, 
are either two-winged, like flies, or four-winged, like bees; but none of those 
which have a sting in the tail are two-winged.“ 
And IV, 7, 3: ,Also the myops (probably Haematopota caecutiens) 
and the oestrus (Tabanus) have a hard tongue..... because all that have no 
tail-sting use the tongue as a weapon.“ 
Also in the: De partibus anim. IV, 6, 3—4, where Aristotle says that 
Diptera have but two wings, because they are lighter than Hymenoptera, 
I. B. MEYER, Avristoteles Thierkunde, Berlin, 1855, p. 209 has some critical 
remarks about these passages. 
