in Physiology, certain appearances arising from the various shades of colour in the clouds by the light from the heavenly bodies, especially the sun and moon. These are infinitely diversified by the different figures and situations of the clouds, and the appearance 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 many writers. See 2 Maccab. xi. 8. Melanchth. 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 opaque and congealed clouds in the middle region of the air, which, according to them, have the effect of a mirror. Thus, according to those 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, et seq.