The Ergates; the Cossus 



us nothing at all except that they live in the 

 trunks of oaks. No matter: with this de- 

 tail we cannot go astray. The worm in ques- 

 tion is the larva of the Great Capricorn 

 (Cerambyx heros). 1 A frequent inmate of 

 the oak, it is, in fact, a lusty grub and at- 

 tracts one's attention by its resemblance to a 

 fat, white sausage. But the expression 

 pragrandesque roborum vermes should, to 

 my thinking, be generalized a little. Pliny 

 was no precisian. Having occasion to speak 

 of a big worm, he mentions that of the oak, 

 the commonest of the larger ones; and he 

 overlooks the others or takes them for 

 granted, probably failing to distinguish them 

 from the first. 



Let us not keep too strictly to the tree 

 mentioned in the Latin text, but consider 

 what the old author had really in mind when 

 he spoke of these worms. We shall find 

 other worms no less worthy of the title of 

 Cossus than the Oak-worm, for instance the 

 worm of the chestnut-tree, the larva of the 

 Stag-beetle. 



One indispensable condition must be ful- 

 filled to earn the celebrated name: the grub 



1 Cf. The Glow-worm and Other Beetles: chap. vii. 

 Translator's Note. 



175 



