HISTORY OF ENTOMOLOGY. 435 



Little is known with regard to the progress of other 

 Greek Naturalists in entomological science. It appears 

 probable, from an epithet by which Hesiod distinguishes 

 the spider air-flying* > that the fact of these insects tra- 

 versing the air was at that time no secret. Apollodorus, 

 as we learn from Pliny b , was the first monographer of 

 insects, since he wrote a treatise upon scorpions, and 

 described nine species. But like many other Zoo- 

 logists, by mistaking analogy for affinity, he has inclu- 

 ded a winged insect, probably a Panorpa, amongst his 

 scorpions. From the time of Aristotle, however, to 

 Pliny, no writer is recorded, with the exception of those 

 before alluded to c , that appears to have attended much 

 to insects. They are indeed incidentally noticed by Theo- 

 phrastus, Dioscorides, Virgil, Ovid, &c., but without 

 any material addition to the stock of entomological 

 knowledge bequeathed to us by the Stagyrite. Even 

 Pliny's vast compendium, as it professed to be, of the 

 natural history of the globe, was in many respects little 

 more than a compilation from that great philosopher. 

 Still, however, though he does not appear to have paid 

 much practical attention to insects, which indeed, con- 

 sidering the extent of his views, was scarcely to be ex- 

 pected, yet as a guide to the then state of entomologi- 

 cal knowledge, and as an advocate for the study, which 

 in the exordium of his eleventh book he has so elo- 

 quently and with so much animation defended from the 

 misrepresentations of ignorance, Pliny has conferred a 

 lasting obligation on the science. The last zoological 

 writer of note was .ZEiian, who amongst other animals 



a Gr. AsgaiTTOTviTos u.(>ct%VYi' Dies. lin. 13. 

 " Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c. 25. c VOL. I. p. 481. VOL. II. p. 121 . 

 2 F 2 



