we 
to prove that the personages of the old poets, were mere tra- 
vesties of the heroes of the Old Testament. This curious paper 
deserves to find a place in the history of the Bugonia. 
Overbeck, J. A., Pastor adjunctus zu Handorf. — Gedanken 
von der Bugonia der Alten (1). In the ,Hamburger Vermischte 
Bibliothek“, Vol. II, p. 8352—361; 1745). 
As the title implies, this article contains a short account 
of the Bugonia-superstition of the ancients, with references to 
Varro and other sources. The author observes that the general 
belief of the ancients in the generatio aequivoca may serve as 
an excuse for such a craze on their part, but that this excuse 
cannot be used in favour of writers of such eminence as Aldro- 
vandi and Joh. Johnston (in his work De Insectis); they should 
have at least made experiments before presuming to instruct 
the world about that absurd method of breeding bees. As an 
example for them to imitate, he quotes the learned Julius 
Jaesar Sealiger (Contra Cardanum), who, a century before them, 
had denied the possibility of the Bugonia (2). Overbeck likewise 
(1) ,Thoughts on the Bugonia of the Ancients.“ I received the volume of 
the Hamb. Verm. Bibl. from the Grand Ducal Library in Carlsruhe. 
(2) J. C. SCALIGER, Exercitationes ; de Subtilitate, ad Hieron. Cardanum. 
1565. Frankfort o. M. I have consulted this work in the Heidelberg University 
Library, and give the result here: 
Evxercitatio 190, 2 (not 90, as Overbeck quotes it) contains the following 
passage: ,Sed et adversum veritati illud est: ex quocunque animali putrefacto 
progigni aliquid animatum. Si enim verum esset, subiret sese circularis gene- 
ratio; ut ad primum, unde factus esset motus, tandem reverterentur. 
Si vitulo apes, ex ape vermiculus, ex vermiculo aliquid; ex eo aliud porro 
proveniret: fieret necessario, ut vel ad vitulum rediretur aliquando, vel procede- 
retur in infinitum. Quamobrem non erit, quod ais, verum: ¢ singulis, cum put- 
rescunt, aliquid proprium generari.“ 
This criticism evidently refers to the passage of CARDANUS which I have 
quoted in the Supplement X, and is quite pertinent. But its weight is some- 
what impaired by the following characteristic passage about Scaliger in the 
Cyclop. Britann. 1886 (in the article on this author by R. Christie): ,,We are 
astonished at the encyclopaedic knowledge which the Exercitationes display, but 
we are obliged to agree with Naudé that Scaliger has committed more faults 
than he has discovered in Cardanus, and with Nizard, that his object seems to 
