jl550 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I67I, 



Those without wings were of a light yellow or flaxen, and being broken at 

 one's nostrils they emitted, like others, an acid or sour scent; but those of the 

 same bank with wings were coal black, and these bruised and smelt to, 

 emitted a smell like musk, that it was too strong for me to endure : yet hav- 

 ing kept them some time by me, the more delicate sex were not displeased 

 Avith the smell. 



Mr. Willoughby informed me, that he had found the goatchafer, or sweet 

 beetle,* out of season as to that smell ; and thereupon asked me, what I had 

 observed as to the time of their sweetest and strongest smelling ? I answered, 

 that I believed it to be at the time of the coit, forasmuch as at that time, 

 when I took them highly perfumed, I had observed the female full of egg. 



Quere, Upon what parts or juices can the ichneumon worms, supposed to be 

 thrust into caterpillars and other maggots, be thought to feed ? may there not 

 be actually eggs in caterpillars and maggots, as there are to be observed in 

 their respective chrysalises sufficient to serve them for food ? Concerning the 

 name i^vroi^uv, although I could willingly refer you to Mr. Ray, who is another 

 Hesychius ; yet for present satisfaction I shall transcribe what the excellent 

 critic G. Vossius says, (c. 16. de Inimicitia ;) Ichneumon (i. e. Mus Pha- 

 raonis sive ^gyptiacus) Crocodili et Aspidis ova indagat, unde illi Ichneu- 

 monis nomen, quasi dicas Indagatorem {octto tS lp(viCBiv :) Reperta utri usque ova 

 content ; uf est apud Oppianum in 30 de Venatione ; Nicander tamen ait, 

 eum aspidis ova humi mandare. 



Now a like observation of certain insects of the wasp kind, made no doubt 

 by some of the ancients, occasioned the application of that name to wasps as 

 well as to that Egyptian mouse. Yet cannot I remember to have met with, 

 in any of the ancients, more than one text concerning those wasps ; viz. 

 Aristot. de Hist. Anim. 1. 5. c. 20. which Pliny (vid. lib. 11. c. 21.) has ren- 

 dered, in a manner verbatim, thus : Vespas, quae Ichneumones vocantur (sunt 

 autem minores quam alias) unum genus ex araneis perimunt, phalangium ap- 

 pellatum, et in nidos suos ferunt ; deinde illinunt, et ex iis, incubando, suum 

 genus procreant. 



How far this relation is true, and agreeable to modern observations, we shall 

 have perhaps occasion to discourse of elsewhere ; our design here is only to 

 tell you, that we have enough to make us believe, that those very insects, we 

 have been treating of, are in species the Ichneumons of the ancients. 



* Of which see Number 74j and Number 76. 



