192 BARON WALCKENAER ON THE INSECTS 



greater number of insects come from a worm (^scolex): " the whole 

 worm grows larger," he says, " and becomes an articulated animal*." 



Aristotle has well observed that the Spiders, Grasshoppers, and 

 Crickets are not produced from worms, but from animals similar to 

 themselves. These ideas upon the metamorphosis of insects are very 

 exact, and though Aristotle blends with them a few errors, which it is 

 unnecessary to consider here, they afford proof of the perseverance with 

 which he pursued his observations, and the surprising skill which 

 he possessed for generalizing acquii'ed facts, and for discovering and 

 predicting those not previously observed. 



It must not be forgotten that it is in relation to the manner in which 

 <;oition is effected in insects that Aristotle names the Spondyle ; and the 

 Chafer is precisely one of those insects which present themselves most 

 frequently to our notice in coition. 



From the text of Pliny and the assertion of Agricola, it appears that 

 among the Latins, and the Greeks of the Lower Empire the name of 

 Spondyle has been retained to denote the larva of the large species 

 of Chafer, with the metamorphosis of which they were unacquainted. 

 That an insect so common as the Chafer, and which acts a part so 

 imjjortant to agriculture by the mischief which it occasions, even in the 

 state of a perfect insect, to the leaves of plants and trees, was known to 

 the Latins as well as to the Greeks, cannot be doubted ; but we are 

 ignorant wliether they gave it a particular name, or whether they in- 

 cluded it under the general names of Scurahaus and Cantharis, so often 

 employed by them to denote all kinds of Coleoptera. 



Fabricius, who has detached the Chafers from the genus Scara- 

 baiis of Linnaeus, has given to this geims the name of Melolontha, 

 which the Swedish naturalist had assigned as the specific name of the 

 most common species. This name is borrowed from Aristotle, who 

 employs it in the same manner as those of Cantharis and Carabus, to 

 denote various species of Scarahcei, which in our natural systems be- 

 long to very different families or to very dissimilar genera. It was 

 from tlie opinion of the learned of the time of Aldrovandusf, and 

 adopted by Bochail;}:, that Linnaeus made the Melolontha of Aristotle 

 our common Cockchafer; but, as Latreille has well observed §, fi'om a 

 comparison of the texts of Suidas, Pollux, and the scholiast on Aristo- 

 phanes, it appears that the name Melolontha was given, among the 

 Greeks, to insects of brilliant colours, a description which does not 

 apply to the common Cockchafer. 



* Aristotle, book v. chap. 19. vol. i, pp. 286 and 287 ; book i. chap. 4. No. 1. 

 and books v., xii., and xvii. of Schneider's edition, 8vo, 1811, vol. ii. chap. 17. 

 {mdgd 19. Scaligev 18), vol. ii. p. 207. 



f Aldrovandus, De Animaiibiis Insectis, p. 17. 



X Bochart, 1 1 ierozoicon , part ii. book iv. chap. 2. 



^ See Latreil'e's Memoir upon the Insects painted or sculptured upon the 

 ancient Monuments of Egypt, in the Mhnoires sur divers Utijels, 8vo. 



