BY WHICH THE VIXE IS INFESTED. 179 



and consequently the Spondyle mentioned in this last passage, as a plant 

 (the parsnep)*. 



M. Schneider in his note does not attempt to prove the accuracy of 

 his translation, but contents himself with citing the authority of Scaliger. 

 I confess that I here lean to the opinion of Le Camus. It is not, however, 

 necessary to discuss the subject ; and the circumstance that Aristotle has 

 twice mentioned an insect named Spondyle or Sphondyleis of little im- 

 portance, since he gives us no information respecting it. In the second 

 passage, indeed, he compares it to the Staphylinus, but we know still 

 less of the Staphylinus than of the Spondyle, and in neither passage is 

 any mention made of the vine. Nor should we have noticed the Spon- 

 dyle of Aristotle were it he alpne who had spoken of it ; but Pliny -f- 

 remarks upon the Aristolochia and the wild vine ( Vitis silvestris), 

 which vegetates a year in the shade, that no animal infests the roots of 

 these plants, nor of others of which he has treated, excepting the Spon- 

 dyle, a sort of serpent, which attacks them all. " Et Aristolochia ac 

 vitis silvestris anno in umbra servantur : et animalium quidem exterorum 

 nullum aliud radices a nobis dictas attingit excepta Spondyle quce omnes 

 persequitur. Gemis id serpentis est." 



Schneider after quoting this passage adds, "Inepte tit solet." 

 Pliny has conceived with genius and executed with ability an abridged 

 encyclopaedia of human knowledge; he may perhaps be esteemed 

 the author of the most learned work ever composed; and it certainly 

 is not allowable to speak of a writer of such merit with the asperity 

 and disdain manifested on this occasion by the learned German. 

 However, if the severity of the criticism sometimes occasioned by the 

 difficulties we experience from the gross errors into which Pliny 

 has been led, by the necessity of treating of so many things which he 

 understood imperfectly, can be excused, it is certainly in the editor or 

 translator of Aristotle's Natural History of Animals. Pliny has bor- 

 rowed extensively from that admirable work ; sometimes he is con- 

 tented with translating it ; but even then he generally confuses, by inac- 

 curate or pompously obscure phrases, what Aristotle had explained with 

 clearness and precision, and often mixes with it popular and ridiculous 

 stories, or erroneous and inconsistent notions. But it would have been 

 better if M. Schneider, who combines the knowledge of a naturalist with 

 the erudition of a philologist, instead of allowing himself to use the ex- 

 pression we have cited on this passage of Pliny, had inquired what ad- 

 vantage might be reaped from it ; he would then have seen that the er- 

 ror of Pliny will enable us to determine what species of insect is meant 

 by the Spondyle in the first passage of Aristotle, and perhaps also in 



• Schneider, Jrist. Anim. Hist., vol. iv. p. 6C5. 



t Plin. Hist. Nat. book xxvii. §.118. (chap. 13.); vol. viii. p. 106 of the edition 

 of Franz. 



