374 VARRO ON FARMING 



ex ipsis t viris alvos habeat nem c5germinant coniectura 

 capiunt si intus faciunt bombum et cum intro eunt ac 

 foras et si opercula aluum cum remoreissi favorum fora- 

 mina obductavidentur membranis cum sint repleti melle." 

 Scaliger's remark on this is ** Non est locus inquinatior 

 isto, et sane eum emendandi omnem prorsus spem 

 abieci " — and Victorius and Keil say much the same 

 thing. Schneider rewrites the whole passage arbitrarily. 

 I would suggest '' Signum eximendorum favorum 

 sumunt ex ipsis (fures alvos habeatne an contra exter- 

 minarit coniecturam capiunt si intus faciunt bombum et 

 cum intro eunt et foras, trepidant) et opercula alvorum 

 cum remoris (Keil) si favorum obducta videntur mem- 

 branis — cum sunt repleti melle." 



The cumbrous parenthesis is characteristic of Varro 

 in these books. As to *' fures" for "uiris," Varro (III, 

 i6, 19) mentioned "fur" as a name given to drones, 

 and the expulsion of them seems indicated by what 

 follows. The copyist probably took the '* f " for " s " (a 

 common mistake, cf. "sit" for "fit," etc.) and found he 

 had already written " s " in " ipsis. " ' * Alvos " (nominative 

 here) is frequently used by Columella and Pliny to 

 signify the bees in the hive. For "nem" I have given 

 " ne an." The corruption would be easy, as the MS. of 

 which the Archetype was a copy had almost certainly the 

 open a. The change of " cogerminarit " to "contra 

 exterminarit " is violent — but "c" and "t" are fre- 

 quently (seventeen times) confused in these books (cf. 

 "torium" for "corium," II, 5, 8, etc.), and the scribe 

 may have read the " t's " as "c's" ("contra," I find, was 

 sometimes written con), and his eye may have jumped 

 the letters between con and " cerminarit " (cf. " a(d)ver- 

 tendum" for " animadvertendum," I, 12, 2). The result 



