BY WHICH THE VINE IS INFESTED. 169 



Was ignorant that the application of the word Staphylinus to a genus of 

 insects of the class Coleoptera, now divided into a great number of ge- 

 nera bearing other names, is not more ancient than the time of Linnaeus, 

 who was the first to employ this word in its present signification, with- 

 out attempting to determine that which it bears in Aristotle, whom he 

 does not quote. 



As to the superior orders of animals, such as quadrupeds, birds, fishes, 

 and reptiles, naturalists have been careful to establish, whenever it was 

 possible, the identity of the species which they have described with 

 those mentioned by the ancients ; and for this reason, that the latter nave 

 recorded facts that have not since been so well observed, and some that 

 have not been observed at all, and because still they all form part of the 

 science; but this is not the case with insects. Notwithstanding the im- 

 perfection of the science of entomology, the most difficult branch of 

 natural history, the moderns have made such progress in it that they 

 have nothing to learn from the ancients upon this subject; if, therefore, 

 we except the domestic bee, the caterpillar of JBombix Mori, or the 

 silk-wonn, two species of insects as important as the largest animals in 

 the history of man, of commerce, and of the arts, we shall find that the 

 moderns have occupied themselves very little with what the ancients 

 have said upon insects : at the same time, the names that they have 

 borrowed from them prove that they had read their works upon the 

 subject, and that they would willingly have established, by the identity 

 of the objects upon which they were employed, a direct relation between 

 their labours and those of "the naturalists who had preceded them in 

 ancient times ; but they appear to have considered this to be too difficult, 

 or as impossible to be undertaken with success. This is the reason that 

 the number of dissertations upon this subject is so small ; and even of 

 the few that we possess the object is only to discover to what class of 

 insects the ancient name should be applied, not to determine the genus 

 or the species. 



If the science of natural history has little to hope from such investi- 

 gations, they may yet be subservient to the acquisition of a better and 

 more exact interpretation of the ancient texts; and the difficulties with 

 which the subject is attended ought not to induce us to neglect it. With 

 regard to this, as well as all the uncultivated parts of the vast field of 

 erudition, we may say, if this had been easy it is probable that it would 

 not have remained undone. 



The above are the considerations which have induced me to write, 

 and submit to the Academy the researches*, to which I was led by a 

 question which one of my learned brethren did me the honour of ad- 



• These researches were read before the Academy of Inscriptions, of which 

 the author is a member, before they were communicated to the Entomological 

 Society. 



