206 BARON WALCKKNAER ON THE INSECTS 



certainly the insect designated by the ancients as preying on horn and 

 meat cannot be the same as that whose worm or larva feeds upon the 

 young shoots of the vine. However, to render the same name applicable 

 to them both, they must have belonged to the class Coleoptera, the larvas 

 of which could not be confounded with caterpillars, or the larvae of 

 Lepidoptera ; the perfect insect which destroys the shoots of the vine 

 must also resemble the Dermestes in form and dimensions. All these 

 conditions meet in the Eumolpus Vitis, the Eumolpus of the vine of 

 modern naturalists, wliicli is one of the greatest scourges of that plant. 

 This insect, which is of a black and blood-red colour, belongs to a genus 

 M'hich has been separated from the Cryptocephali*, and is vulgarly known 

 under the names of the Crj-^itocephalus ( Gribouris) of the vine, Beche, 

 Lisette, and Tete-cache, because its head is covered by its corselet. It 

 feeds upon the buds of the vine, or on the young shoots of that plant 

 which still remain herbaceous, which it cuts in two and causes entirely to 

 perish. It feeds also upon grapes. The great injuries inflicted by this 

 insect upon the vine is an additional reason for considering it as the Jps 

 of the ancients. As Strabo observes, we can imagine that the veneration 

 in which the memory of Hercules was held in a country planted with the 

 vine was more on account of his supposed destruction of this plague than 

 of his victory over the Nemaean lion, and why the cultivators were so 

 anxious to obtain and employ recipes for the destruction of these vermin. 

 When the ancients spoke of the Jps or Iks as a worm which appeared in 

 the spring, they had in view the larva of the Eumolpus of the vine. The 

 larva of this insect is oval ; it has six feet ; its head is scaly and armed 

 M'ith two small maxillaef . The insect named Ips or Iks by the Greeks, 

 was called Vohicra or Volvox by the Latins ; but with this difference, 

 that the word Ips and Iks were applied to the larva of tliis insect, while 

 Volucra and Volvox were the names of the perfect insect. This is 

 proved by the use of the word animal, and not vermis, which Pliny and 

 Columella emjiloy when speaking of tlic Volucra or Volvox ; while the 

 Ij)s is always spoken of as a worm by the Greeks. The name Volucra 

 has probablj- been given to these larvae in consequence of the prompti- 

 tude with which they escape from the hand which endeavours to seize 

 them, for they drop down upon the earth as soon as the leaf in which 

 they are enveloped is touched ; and the name Volvox is undoubtedly 

 derived from this insect's habit of rolling itself up in leaves. Forcellini, 

 in his dictionary, gives the Italian word Ritoritelli as the equivalent of 

 the word Volucra ; this vulgar name of an insect of the vine in Italy has 

 evidently the same origin as Volvox. Nearly all the insects of the genus 



* Buchoz, Hist. Nat. des Ins. nuisiblesa I'Homme, 1782, 12mo, p. 158 to 163. 



t Latreille, Nom\ Diet. d'Htst. Nat., vol. x. p. 358. He quotes Olivier, 

 No. 96. ])1. ] . fig. 1 ; but this figure does not represent the insect of the vine, but 

 is a species from Brazil, the Eumolpus iynitus, which is a diiierent hisect. 



