BY WHICH THE ViNE IS INFESTED. 191 



tion ; things mnst therefore indicate the order to be followed in deter- 

 mining tlie value of words. We therefore commence with insects 

 which are only slightly connected with our subject, or upon which the 

 ancients have furnished us with particulars from ^^'hich only vague and 

 uncertain or too general notions can be derived; and we shall pass suc- 

 cessively to those insects which are the principal objects of our re- 

 searches, and for which the texts furnish us with circumstantial details 

 and more precise methods of determination ; according to the custom 

 of algebraists, who first eliminate from their equations the parasitic 

 quantities, or those which furnish only impei'fect data for the solution 

 of the problems to be solved. 



II. Spoiidyle, or Sphondyle. — Scarabaeus Melolontha of LinncBus. — 

 The Chafer (Hanneton). — Digression on the various species of Cluifers 

 hnoion to the ancients, on several ScarabfBi ichich are allied to that 

 genus, and on tlie employment of tJie word Melolontha by the ancients and 

 the modertis. 



According to the order which we have marked out, the word Spon- 

 dyle, or Sphondyle, claims priority. 



The conclusions derived from the examination and comparison of the 

 texts are, that the larva of this insect is sufficiently large to have been 

 taken for a small serpent ; and that it preys upon the roots of all sorts of 

 plants, excepting that of the Aristolochia, or Wild Vine, Vitis sylvestris, 

 which is the Clematis or another plant, but which is not the Vine*. 



We are acquainted with only one species of larva which fulfills these 

 conditions; it is the common Cockchafer, so well known and so much 

 dreaded by horticulturists under the name of the white worm. The 

 larva of the 3Ielolontha Fullo, or of the Melolontha vulgaris of modern 

 naturalists, according to the results we have obtained, is the Spoudyle 

 of Aristotle and Pliny. 



I find in Aldrovandusf that Agricola said that the modern Greeks 

 give the name of Spondyle to a species of worm of the size of the 

 little finger, with the head of a reddish colour, and the body white, 

 which is found in the earth entwined around the roots of esculent 

 vegetables. This is certainly the larva of the Chafer. Did Agricola 

 receive this information from modern Greeks, and is the word Spon- 

 dyle still employed by them to denote the white worm ? 



If the Spondyle of Pliny is the same as that of Aristotle, it follows that 

 the latter naturalist, who designated a perfect insect by this name, was 

 acquainted with its nietanu)rpiK)sis ; which will not appear surprising if 

 we remember tliat Aristotle, as I have already observed, has exceedingly 

 well described the nietamorpiiosis of the Cabbage Butterfly, aiul that 

 after that description he generalizes the fact, and remarks that the 



* Aristotle and Pliny. See p. 179, anlea. 



+ Alilrovandus, JDt- Jrisectis: Frankfort, 1G18, p. 225. 



