Note 2 — Chapter XXVI · SIEGE OF GERONA.

This would naturally be deemed miraculous, and the miracle was ascribed to St. Narcissus and other saints, whose graves the French had disturbed, and scattered their remains about. One statement is, that the flies proceeded from St. Narcissus’s tomb. Muscæ istæ partim erant lividæ, partim virides, in quâdam sui parte colorem rubeum denotantes. (Gesta Com. Barcin. 569, ut supra.) Ceterum, qui locorum periti sunt quæ circum Gerundam visuntur, says the Archbishop Pierre de Marca, ii testantur haud procul eâ urbe videri rupes ex quibus vulgò oriuntur etiamnum muscæ quales e scpulchro Sancti Narcissi prodiisse fabulantur. Quod si ita est, non ultra inquirendum est in earum originem quæ Gallico tum exercitui insultârunt, quas manifestum est ortas esse ex rupibus illis. Marca Hispanica, 468.

The flies are described differently in the Acta Sanctorum (Mart. t. ii. 624), where the miracles of St. Narcissus are given ex hispanico Ant. Vincentii Domenecci. Ex ipso sancti præsulis sepulchro exierunt innumera examina muscarum, cœruleo partim, partim viridi colore tinctarum, rubrisque striis dispunctarum; quæ virorum equorumque subingressæ nares, non priùs deserebant occupatos, quàm spiritum vitamque abstulissent, concidentibus humi mortuis. Tanti enim erat veneni efficacia, ut seu virum seu equum momordissent, morsum continuò mors sequeretur. These authorities are given because they relate to a curious fact in natural history, ... if there be any truth in the story; and that there was a plague of insects can hardly be doubted. That their bite was so deadly, and that they proceeded from the tomb, I should have hesitated as little as the reader to disbelieve, if some other accounts had not seemed to show that both these apparent improbabilities may be possible. It is said that one part of Louisiana is infested by a fly whose bite is fatal to horses. And about twenty years ago, at Lewes, when a leaden coffin, which had been interred about threescore years, was opened, the legs and thighbones of the skeleton were found to be “covered with myriads of flies, of a species, perhaps, totally unknown to the naturalist. The wings were white, and the spectators gave it the name of the coffin-fly. The lead was perfectly sound, and presented not the least chink or crevice for the admission of air”: and the flies which were thus released are described as being active and strong on the wing.

If, however, some long lost species had reappeared from the tomb, and multiplied so as to become a plague, it would have continued in the country. But if Pierre de Marca was rightly informed that a fly which corresponds in appearance to the description is still found there, it certainly possesses none of the tremendous powers which the legend ascribes to it.