208 BARON WALCKENAEU ON THE INSECTS 



nification. The description of the industry attributed by Plautus to the 

 Involvulns, to the little beast, " bestiola qucc in pampini folio intorta 

 impUcat se," can be applied only to caterpillars or the larvas of the Lepi- 

 doptera. The caterpillar not only coils up the leaf of the plant in which 

 it envelops itself, like the larva of the Eumolpus or Coupe-bourgeon, 

 but it attaches itself to it, and by means of silken filaments which it 

 draws from its own body, constructs for its metamorphosis a web of silk, 

 in which it envelops itself, " implicat se." The caterpillars of a whole 

 family of Lepidoptera envelop themselves in this manner in the leaves 

 of plants. To discover the Involvulus or Convolvulus of the ancients 

 it is therefore only necessarj^ to examine those insects of the numerous 

 family of the i^/iafeHfE Tortrices of which the caterpillar attacks the vine. 

 According to the observations of Bosc, the cultivators of the South of 

 France give the name of Vine-moth to one of the Lepidoptera which is 

 seldom found in the environs of Paris. The caterpillar or larva of this 

 moth attacks the grapes when they have attained half of their full growth, 

 and it proceeds from one grape to another by means of a gallery which 

 it constructs*. There is another species named Grape-mothf, which 

 also devours this fruit, and commences its ravages at the same period 

 as the former, but it seldom attacks more than one grape at a time ; 

 this species committed great depredations in the vineyards in the vicinity 

 of Constance a few years ago. A species similar to this, or to the pre- 

 ceding one, and of which one or two insects are sufficient to destroy a 

 whole vine, was observed in the Crimea by Pallas J. This species appears 

 to be the caterpillar of a Procris or Zigcena (a genus separated from 

 the genus Sphinx), and is said to be nearly allied to the Zigcena Statices ; 

 it is found upon the sorrel and dock in the environs of Paris §. The 

 Pyralis fascianaW, which has anterior wings of a dark cinder colour, 

 with a brown line and points of the same colour, has also been men- 

 tioned as infesting the vine, or as corresponding to one of the species 

 just alluded to. There is also another species which may be ranked 

 among the insects to which our cultivators have given the names of 

 Vine-moth and Grape-moth, we mean Hiibner's Tifiea ambigtiella^. But 



• BosCjNotice sur la Pyrale et autres Insectes qui nuisent auxVignobles; Esprit 

 des Journaux, p. 139, and Bulletin de la Societe d' Encouragement. 



f Kirby, Introduct. to Entomology, vol. i. p. 205. 



X Pallas, Travels in Russia, vol. ii. p. 241. 



§ Walckenaer, Faun. Paris., vol. ii. p. 284. No. 2. Fabricius, Entom. Syst., 

 vol. lii. part i. p. 406. No. 8. Godart, Hist, des Lepidopferes de France, vol. iii. 

 p. 158. pi. 22. Diet. Classique d'Hist. Nat., vol. xiv. p. 289, at the word Procris. 



II Fabricius, ii«<o?«. Syst., vol. iii. part ii. p. 2G1. No. 78. Fabricius considers 

 it to be the Tortrix Heparana of the Catalogue of Vienna; it is not the Fasci- 

 ana of Linnaeus. Compare Friedrich Treitschke, Die Sclimetterlinge von Eu- 

 ropa, vol. viii, p. 28. 



^ Hiibner, tab. 22. fig. 153. sect. 64. No. 61 of the text. Treitschke, Die 



