June, 1909.] Dow : Origin of Entomological Names. 55 



Greek literature has plenty of examples of similar jests directed 

 against the boorish Boeotians. 



Fabricius was responsible for an odd translation of Cossus, Latin, 

 meaning a wood-boring larva good to eat. The lexicographer refers 

 this to a Prionus. It is much more likely that it refers to some scar- 

 abaeid larva which lives in rotten wood and makes its cocoon of chips. 

 Such larvse are not only eatable but very tasty. German boys are 

 fond of the adult Melolotitha to this day. The head is removed and the 

 abdominal contents sucked out. The first taste is sweetish, the last is 

 slightly bitter. 



Ephemeron (Aristotle) is self explanatory. Meloloiitha is the 

 pollen feeder in adult form. The Chrysomelid is merely a beetle of 

 a distinct golden color, perhaps a Scarabseid, perhaps a Coptocycla. 

 Linne mistranslated Attelabus of Aristotle. The context indicates that 

 it is a wingless creature with large eyes, a locust or some allied 

 insect. Thrips is, by the context, a wood-borer. Dennestes, the skin- 

 eater, is Homeric. It can only apply to the Dermestidse, or possibly 

 a Trox. Ips is Homeric and was mistranslated by Fabricius a Nitid- 

 ulid, and by De Geer as a Rhynchophorous insect. It is a larva which 

 eats horn and wood, quite possibly a Ptinid. The Latin Musca does 

 not admit of mistranslation. 



Staphylinus was a misconception on the part of x'Yristotle and a mis- 

 translation on the part of Linne. Literally it is an insect which 

 smells like the bruised wild carrot, and is one of the Coleoptera, as 

 Aristotle understood that order. Hemiptera were unknown to him. 



The ^/;//(?x, the only Hemipteron named, is wingless. The Horn - 

 optera he relegated to the locust group. The Coleoptera to him were the 

 insects whose backs were covered by a sheath, no matter whether 

 the elytra met in a straight line down the back or crossed. It is to 

 be doubted whether he would have recognized the Staphylinidae and 

 Pselaphidse, with their short elytra, as beetles at all. I believe, there- 

 fore, that Staphylifius refers to a strong-smelling Hemipteron, probably 

 a pentatomid. So also Spondyla, a strong-smelling insect keeping 

 close to the roots of plants, is probably a Hemipteron of some sort. 



Clerus (Aristotle) is a coleopterous insect noxious to bees. On 

 this slender evidence the learned Camus argued through many dreary 

 pages that it must be the insect now known as Clerus apivorus. The 

 pros and cons of excited and angry German scholars over this point 

 filled volumes from 1832 to 1849. 



