168 BARON WALCKENAEA ON IHE INSECfS 



fectly- described tliose with which they were acquainted. This con-' 

 viction was quickly impressed upon the mind with regard to the smaller 

 species of animals, because upon this point their ignorance was the 

 greatest, and the application of the notions which they had acquired to 

 the knowledge of the moderns the most difficult and perplexing. 



With regard to insects in particular, it was easy to see that the an- 

 cients had treated of only a veiy small number, and that with great in- 

 accuracy ; their works on this class of anintals consequently ceased to 

 occupy attention, which was exclusively devoted to the study of na- 

 ture, and the science soon advanced rapidly. 



However, the names that the ancients had imposed upon some classes 

 of insects easily recognised remained, having parsed from the ancient 

 languages into the vernacular tongues. The more obscure names, the 

 signification of which was doubtful or unknown, were employed by the 

 modern naturalists foi" the numerous genera which the progress of science 

 rendered it necessary to establish. Naturalists did not resolve to invent 

 new names until all those employed by the ancients in the classes Avhich 

 they were studying were exhausted ; and even then all, excepting M, 

 Adanson, composed the new names from Greek or Latin roots. But 

 even when naturalists gave names employed by the ancients to the ge- 

 nera of insects which they had formed, it was generally without any idea 

 of applying them to the species which they had been employed by the 

 ancients to designate, and without any attempt to aid in the recognition 

 of those species. That a name had been used by some ancient author 

 to designate an insect of some kind, or that there was no certain proof 

 of the contrary, ha.s been deemed a sufficient reason by modern ento- 

 mologists for the application of an ancient name to a new genus. Our 

 entomological systems contain names employed by the ancients, the signi- 

 fication of which is so entirely lost that it is matter of doubt whether they 

 belonged to an animal or a plant. 



It is necessary for the object that I have in view to illustrate this by 

 an example, wliich is far from being the only one which I could pro- 

 duce. 



M. Camus, the ti-anslator into French of Aristotle's Natural History 

 of Animals*, remarks with reason in bis notes, that commentators are 

 divided with regard to the signification of the word Staphylinus, em- 

 ployed by that philosopher. Some have considered it as the name of 

 an insect, others as that of a plant ; but, says Camus, on the authority 

 of the '■'■Dictionnalre d'Histoire Naturelle de Valmont de Bomare," in 

 which he found the word Staphylinus, "The Staphylinus is an insect 

 well known to naturalists, because it has preserved its name as well in 

 the Latin as in the French." From these words we learn that Camus 



* Camus, Hist, Nat. des Animaux d'Aristote, 4to, t. ii. p. 783. 



