BY WHICH THE VINE IS INFESTED. 189 



devour the leaves, and leave nothing of the plant but a withered and 

 barren stem. 



" Braasica, cumqne tiiment pallentia robora betjE, 



Mercibiis atque olitor gaudet sccurus adultis, 



Et jam matiiris qujerit snpponere falcem, 



Ssepe ferus duros jaculatus Jupiter imbves, 



Grandine dilapidans hominumqne boumque labores : 



Srepe etiani gvavidis irrorat pestifer undis, 



Ex quibiis iufestffi Baccbo, glaucisque salictis 



Nascuntur I'olucres, sevpit Eruca per hortos. 



Qiios super ingrcdiens exurit semiua niorsu, 



Qu£e capitis viduata ccnia, spoliataque nudo 



Vertice, trunca jacent tristi conjuncta veneno*.'' 



Here the Volucres and the Eriicce are mentioned by Columella as 

 different insects ; the first are described as enemies of the vine, the se- 

 cond as destructive to the willow. '■^Et quibus infestce Baccho nascuntur 

 Volucres, glaucisque salictis (infesta) serpit Eruca per hortos." 



This interpretation, which does not appear doubtful, suggests a curious 

 remark. It is this, that with the exception of the Latin translation of 

 the Bible — the Vulgate — in which the word Gaza has been improperly 

 rendered Eruca, the word Eruca has never been employed by the La- 

 tins, in its Latin form, to denote an enemy peculiar to the vine. Pliny 

 and Columella mention the Eruca as the scourge of trees and plants in 

 general, without excepting the vine, but they do not speaii of it as its 

 especial enemy ; and when Palladius, in the passage which we have 

 cited, gives a specific for the caterpillars infesting the vine, we have 

 seen that he employs the word Campus and not Erucas. 



This observation is not made with the intention of inferring from it, 

 that among the names applied by the Latins to insects infesting the 

 vine there are none denoting Caterpillars, or the larvae of Lepidoptera; 

 but it suggests the idea that the insects injurious to the vine mentioned 

 under the names Involvulus, Convolvulus, Volvox, and Volucres by 

 the Latins, were considered by them as jiarticular species of worms or 

 insects, and not as the larvae of Lepidoptera, or Caterpillars, or of ani- 

 mals of the same nature as the Kampai and Eruca ; and that conse- 

 quently the Latins were unacquainted with the metamorphoses of these 

 species of insects. 



In this critical examination I have been careful not to omit any words 

 which are found employed in the writings which remain to us of the 

 Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans to denote insects destructive to the vine. 

 I shall now pass to the second part of tiiis memoir, in which we shall 

 explain the ancient texts by the aid of modern science, and offer such 

 practical considerations as may be useful to the agriculturist. 



• Columella, book x., l)c CtUtu llorlorum, ver. 32G to 33G. 



