Excerpt from Insect Transformations
It was universally believed by the ancient philosophers, that maggots, flies, and other insects were generated from putrefying substances. This opinion continues to be held by uninformed persons among ourselves; - though it would be equally correct to maintain, that a flight of vultures had been generated by the dead carcass which they may be seen devouring, or a flock of sheep from the grass-field in which they graze. Another opinion, perhaps still more generally diffused, is, that caterpillars, aphides, and other garden insects which destroy the leaves of plants, are generated, propagated, or, at least, spread about, by certain winds or states of the air, mysteriously and indefinitely termed blight. The latter belief is, probably, not so easy of immediate refutation as the former; - but, as we shall endeavour to show, it seems to us to be equally erroneous.
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