e light winds
are shut up in its lowermost caverns, and strike rocks against rocks,
and matter that contains the elements of flame, {and} it takes fire at
the concussion, the winds {once} calmed, the caverns will become cool;
or, if the bituminous qualities take fire, or yellow sulphur is being
dried up with a smouldering smoke, still, when the earth shall no longer
give food and unctuous fuel to the flame, its energies being exhausted
in length of time, and when nutriment shall be wanting to its devouring
nature, it will not {be able to} endure hunger, and left destitute, it
will desert its flames.

"The story is, that in the far Northern Pallene[38] there are persons,
who are wont to have their bodies covered with light feathers, when they
have nine times entered the Tritonian lake. For my part I do not believe
it; {but} the Scythian women, as well, having their limbs sprinkled with
poison, are said to employ the same arts. But if we are to give any
credit[39] to things proved {by experience}, do you not see that
whatever bodies are consumed by length of time, or by dissolving heat,
are changed into small animals? Come too, bury some choice bullocks
{just} slain, it is a thing well ascertained by experience, {that}
flower-gathering bees are produced promiscuously from the putrefying
entrails. These, after the manner of their producers, inhabit the
fields, delight in toil, and labour in hope. The warlike steed,[40]
buried in the ground, is the source of the hornet. If you take off the
bending claws from the crab of the sea-shore, {and} bury the rest in the
earth, a scorpion will come forth from the part {so} buried, and will
threaten with its crooked tail.

"The silkworms, too, that are wont to cover the leaves with their white
threads, a thing observable by husbandmen, change their forms into that
of the deadly moth.[41] Mud contains seed that generate green frogs; and
it produces them deprived of feet;[42] soon it gives them legs adapted
for swimming; and that the same may be fitted for long leaps, the length
of the hinder ones exceeds {that of} the fore legs. And it is not a
cub[43] which the bear produces at the moment of birth, but a mass of
flesh hardly alive. By licking, the mother forms it into limbs, and
brings it into a shape, such as she herself has. Do you not see, that
the offspring of the honey bees, which the hexagonal cell conceals, are
produced without limbs, and that they assume both feet and wings {