by Aristotle
which come into being spontaneously and not from copulation do so at
first from a formation this nature. I say that the former generate a
scolex, for we must put down caterpillars also and the product of
spiders as a sort of scolex. And yet some even of these and many of
the others may be thought to resemble eggs because of their round
shape, but we must not judge by shapes nor yet by softness and
hardness (for what is produced by some is hard), but by the fact
that the whole of them is changed into the body of the creature and
the animal is not developed from a part of them. All these products
that are of the nature of a scolex, after progressing and acquiring
their full size, become a sort of egg, for the husk about them hardens
and they are motionless during this period. This is plain in the
scolex of bees and wasps and in caterpillars. The reason of this is
that their nature, because of its imperfection, oviposits as it were
before the right time, as if the scolex, while still growing in
size, were a soft egg. Similar to this is also what happens with all
other insects which come into being without copulation in wool and
other such materials and in water. For all of them after the scolex
stage become immovable and their integument dries round them, and
after this the latter bursts and there comes forth as from an egg an
animal perfected in its second metamorphosis, most of those which
are not aquatic being winged.
Another point is quite natural, which may wondered at by many.
Caterpillars at first take nourishment, but after this stage do so
no longer, but what is called by some the chrysalis is motionless. The
same applies to the scolex of wasps and bees, but after this comes
into being the so-called nymph.... and have nothing of the kind. For
an egg is also of such a nature that when it has reached perfection it
grows no more in size, but at first it grows and receives
nourishment until it is differentiated and becomes a perfect egg.
Sometimes the scolex contains in itself the material from which it
is nourished and obtains such an addition to its size, e.g. in bees
and wasps; sometimes it gets its nourishment from outside itself, as
caterpillars and some others.
It has thus been stated why such animals go through a double
development and for what reason they become immovable again after
moving. And some of them come into being by copulation, like birds and
vivipara and most fishes, others spontaneously, like some plants.
10
There is much difficulty about the generation of bees. If it is
really true that in the case of some fishes there is such a method
of generation that they produce eggs without copulation, this may well
happen also with bees, to judge from appearances. For they must (1)
either bring the young brood from elsewhere, as some say, and if so
the young must either be spontaneously generated or produced by some
other animal, or (2) they must generate them themselves, or (3) they
must bring some and generate others, for this also is maintained by
some, who say that they bring the young of the drones only. Again,
if they generate them it must be either with or without copulation; if
the former, then either (1) each kind must generate its own kind, or
(2) some one kind must generate the others, or (3) one kind must unite
with another for the purpose (I mean for instance (1) that bees may
be generated from the union of bees, drones from that of drones, and
kings from that of kings, or (2) that all the others may be
generated from one, as from what are called kings and leaders, or
(3) from the union of drones and bees, for some say that the former
are male, the latter female, while others say that the bees are male
and the drones female). But all these views are impossible if we
reason first upon the facts peculiar to bees and secondly upon those
which apply more generally to other animals also.
For if they do not generate the young but bring them from elsewhere,
then bees ought to come into being also, if the bees did not carry
them off, in the places from which the old bees carry the germs. For
why, if new bees come into existence when the germs are transported,
should they not do so if the germs are left there? They ought to do so
just as much, whether the germs are spontaneously generated in the
flowers or whether some animal generates them. And if the germs were
of some other animal, then that animal ought to be produced from
them instead of bees. Again, that they should collect honey is
reasonable, for it is their food, but it is strange that they should
collect the young if they are neither their own offspring nor food.
With what object should they do so? for all animals that trouble
themselves about the young labour for what appears to be their own
offspring.
But, again, it is also unreasonable to suppose that the bees are
female and the drones male, for Nature does not give weapons for
fighting to any female, and while the drones are stingless all the
bees have a sting. Nor is the opposite view reasonable, that the
bees are male and the drones female, for no males are in the habit
of working for their offspring, but as it is the bees do this. And
generally, since the brood of the drones is found coming into being
among them even if there is no mature drone present, but that of the
bees is not so found without the presence of the kings (which is
why some say that the young of the drones alone is brought in from
outside), it is plain that they are not produced from copulation,
either (1) of bee with bee or drone with drone or (2) of bees with
drones. (That they should import the brood of the drones alone is
impossible for the reasons already given, and besides it is
unreasonable that a similar state of things should not prevail with
all the three kinds if it prevails with one.) Then, again, it is also
impossible that the bees themselves should be some of them male and
some female, for in all kinds of animals the two sexes differ. Besides
they would in that case generate their own kind, but as it is their
brood is not found to come into being if the leaders are not among
them, as men say. And an argument against both theories, that the
young are generated by union of the bees with one another or with
the drones, separately or with one another, is this: none of them
has ever yet been seen copulating, whereas this would have often
happened if the sexes had existed in them. It remains then, if they
are generated by copulation at all, that the kings shall unite to
generate them. But the drones are found to come into being even if
no leaders are present, and it is not possible that the bees should
either import their brood or themselves generate them by copulation.
It remains then, as appears to be the case in certain fishes, that the
bees should generate the drones without copulation, being indeed
female in respect of generative power, but containing in themselves
both sexes as plants do. Hence also they have the instr
ument of
offence, for we ought not to call that female in which the male sex is
not separated. But if this is found to be the case with drones, if
they come into being without copulation, then as it is necessary
that the same account should be given of the bees and the kings and
that they also should be generated without copulation. Now if the
brood of the bees had been found to come into being among them without
the presence of the kings, it would necessarily follow that the bees
also are produced from bees themselves without copulation, but as it
is, since those occupied with the tendance of these creatures deny
this, it remains that the kings must generate both their own kind
and the bees.
As bees are a peculiar and extraordinary kind of animal so also
their generation appears to be peculiar. That bees should generate
without copulation is a thing which may be paralleled in other
animals, but that what they generate should not be of the same kind is
peculiar to them, for the erythrinus generates an erythrinus and the
channa a channa. The reason is that bees themselves are not
generated like flies and similar creatures, but from a kind
different indeed but akin to them, for they are produced from the
leaders. Hence in a sort of way their generation is analogous. For the
leaders resemble the drones in size and the bees in possessing a
sting; so the bees are like them in this respect, and the drones are
like them in size. For there must needs be some overlapping unless the
same kind is always to be produced from each; but this is
impossible, for at that rate the whole class would consist of leaders.
The bees, then, are assimilated to them their power of generation, the
drones in size; if the latter had had a sting also they would have
been leaders, but as it is this much of the difficulty has been
solved, for the leaders are like both kinds at once, like the bees
in possessing a sting, like the drones in size.
But the leaders also must be generated from something. Since it is
neither from the bees nor from the drones, it must be from their own
kind. The grubs of the kings are produced last and are not many in
number.
Thus what happens is this: the leaders generate their own kind but
also another kind, that of the bees; the bees again generate another
kind, the drones, but do not also generate their own kind, but this
has been denied them. And since what is according to Nature is
always in due order, therefore it is necessary that it should be
denied to the drones even to generate another kind than themselves.
This is just what we find happening, for though the drones are
themselves generated, they generate nothing else, but the process
reaches its limit in the third stage. And so beautifully is this
arranged by Nature that the three kinds always continue in existence
and none of them fails, though they do not all generate.
Another fact is also natural, that in fine seasons much honey is
collected and many drones are produced but in rainy reasons a large
brood of ordinary bees. For the wet causes more residual matter to
be formed in the bodies of the leaders, the fine weather in that of
the bees, for being smaller in size they need the fine weather more
than the kings do. It is right also that the kings, being as it were
made with a view to producing young, should remain within, freed
from the labour of procuring necessaries, and also that they should be
of a considerable size, their bodies being, as it were, constituted
with a view to bearing young, and that the drones should be idle as
having no weapon to fight for the food and because of the slowness
of their bodies. But the bees are intermediate in size between the two
other kinds, for this is useful for their work, and they are workers
as having to support not only their young but also their fathers.
And it agrees with our views that the bees attend upon their kings
because they are their offspring (for if nothing of the sort had been
the case the facts about their leadership would be unreasonable), and
that, while they suffer the kings to do no work as being their
parents, they punish the drones as their children, for it is nobler to
punish one's children and those who have no work to perform. The
fact that the leaders, being few, generate the bees in large numbers
seems to be similar to what obtains in the generation of lions,
which at first produce five, afterwards a smaller number each time
at last one and thereafter none. So the leaders at first produce a
number of workers, afterwards a few of their own kind; thus the
brood of the latter is smaller in number than that of the former,
but where Nature has taken away from them in number she has made it up
again in size.
Such appears to be the truth about the generation of bees, judging
from theory and from what are believed to be the facts about them; the
facts, however, have not yet been sufficiently grasped; if ever they
are, then credit must be given rather to observation than to theories,
and to theories only if what they affirm agrees with the observed
facts.
A further indication that bees are produced without copulation is
the fact that the brood appears small in the cells of the comb,
whereas, whenever insects are generated by copulation, the parents
remain united for a long time but produce quickly something of the
nature of a scolex and of a considerable size.
Concerning the generation of animals akin to them, as hornets and
wasps, the facts in all cases are similar to a certain extent, but are
devoid of the extraordinary features which characterize bees; this
we should expect, for they have nothing divine about them as the
bees have. For the so-called 'mothers' generate the young and mould
the first part of the combs, but they generate by copulation with
one another, for their union has often been observed. As for all the
differences of each of these kind from one another and from bees, they
must be investigated with the aid of the illustrations to the
Enquiries.
11
Having spoken of the generation of all insects, we must now speak of
the testacea. Here also the facts of generation are partly like and
partly unlike those in the other classes. And this is what might be
expected. For compared with animals they resemble plants, compared
with plants they resemble animals, so that in a sense they appear to
come into being from semen, but in another sense not so, and in one
way they are spontaneously generated but in another from their own
kind, or some of them in the latter way, others in the former. Because
their nature answers to that of plants, therefore few or no kinds of
testacea come into being on land, e.g. the snails and any others,
few as they are, that resemble them; but in the sea and similar waters
there are many of all kinds of forms. But the class of plants has
but few and one may say practically no representatives in the sea
and such places, all such growing on the land. Fo
r plants and testacea
are analogous; and in proportion as liquid has more quickening power
than solid, water than earth, so much does the nature of testacea
differ from that of plants, since the object of testacea is to be in
such a relation to water as plants are to earth, as if plants were, so
to say, land-oysters, oysters water-plants.
For such a reason also the testacea in the water vary more in form
than those on the land. For the nature of liquid is more plastic
than that of earth and yet not much less material, and this is
especially true of the inhabitants of the sea, for fresh water, though
sweet and nutritious, is cold and less material. Wherefore animals
having no blood and not of a hot nature are not produced in lakes
nor in the fresher among brackish waters, but only exceptionally,
but it is in estuaries and at the mouths of rivers that they come into
being, as testacea and cephalopoda and crustacea, all these being
bloodless and of a cold nature. For they seek at the same time the
warmth of the sun and food; now the sea is not only water but much
more material than fresh water and hot in its nature; it has a share
in all the parts of the universe, water and air and earth, so that
it also has a share in all living things which are produced in
connexion with each of these elements. Plants may be assigned to land,
the aquatic animals to water, the land animals to air, but
variations of quantity and distance make a great and wonderful
difference. The fourth class must not be sought in these regions,
though there certainly ought to be some animal corresponding to the
element of fire, for this is counted in as the fourth of the
elementary bodies. But the form which fire assumes never appears to be
peculiar to it, but it always exists in some other of the elements,
for that which is ignited appears to be either air or smoke or
earth. Such a kind of animal must be sought in the moon, for this
appears to participate in the element removed in the third degree from
earth. The discussion of these things however belongs to another
subject.