in physiology, certain appearances arising from the various tinctures of the clouds by the rays of the heavenly bodies, especially the sun and moon. These are infinitely diversified by the different figures and situations of the clouds, and the appulses of the rays of light; and, together with the occasional flashings and shootings of different meteors, they have, no doubt, occasioned those prodigies of armies fighting in the air, &c., of which we have such frequent accounts in most sorts of writers. See 2 Maccab. xi. 8. Melanch. Meteor. 2 Shel. de Comet. ann. 1618.

Kircher and Schottus have erroneously attempted to explain the phenomenon from the reflection of terrestrial objects made on opake and congealed clouds in the middle region of the air, which, according to them, have the effect of a mirror. Thus, according to these authors, the armies pretended by several historians to have been seen in the skies, were no other than the reflection of the like armies placed on some part of the earth. See Hist. Acad. Roy. Scienc. ann. 1726, p. 405, & seq.