VOL. LIIT.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 17 



There is in the British Museum among the Cicadae, one nearly resembling the 

 animal part of this production, but it came from the East Indies. There 

 is likewise from the West Indies, in its perfect or winged state, the insect of which 

 this production is believed to be the nympha. See fig. 1, pi. i. 



XLV. An Auempt to explain a Punic Inscription, lately discovered in the Island 

 of Malta. By the Rev. John Swinton, B. D., F. R. S. p. 274. 



This inscription was sent from Rome to Mr, T^y^ "135 Otj; rO TlH 

 S. by Signor Venuti. And from the observa- -rn mn D^DU npj 



tions made by Mr. S. it most evidently appears, -'2T^ rtS-'S Dl< ^"1 C- 

 that the annexed arrangement of the words I'^OID p H»J^- 



forming this inscription may be considered as not very remote from truth. The 

 Latin and English versions of which words may, as he conceives, be appositely 

 enough drawn up in the following terms. 



Penetrale domvs secvli (sive domvs perpetvce) — sepvlchrwi deposili (hie) clari 

 (virij consvmmationibvsfi e.omnino, plane, tel, orctissime) dormientis — intime 

 diligens (eum) commotvs (est) popvlvs qvvm ponereivr scil. in terra (i. e. sepeliretvr) 

 Hannibal Barmelec ( Barmilc Bormilc vel Barmeleci)Jilivs. 



The interior part of the house of long duration (or long home i. e. the grave) 

 — she sepulchre of an upright man deposited (here) in a most sound (or dead) 

 sleep — The people having a great affection for him ivere vastly concerned when 

 Hannibal the son of Barmelec (Barmilc or Bormilc) was put into the earth or 

 interred. 



It ought to be here remarked, that the word om terminates the second line, 

 and begins the third ; as also that the proper name ^^Ti, Hannibal, by a simi- 

 lar kind of bissection belongs both to the third and fourth lines. But this is by 

 no means to be wondered at. The Greeks observed the same method of writing 

 in their inscriptions, both of an earlier and a'later date. From this inscription, 

 Mr. S. forms a Maltese-Punic alphabet of 17 characters, very different in shape 

 from the ancient Phoenician or Samaritan. 



Who Hannibal the son of Barmelec, Barmelc, or Bormilc, was, or when he 

 lived, Mr. S. cannot take upon him precisely to determine. We may however, 

 he thinks, rest assured that he died a considerable time (perhaps several centuries) 

 after the Citiean inscriptions, or at least the earliest of them, first appeared. The 

 forms of several of the letters, particularly of the Aleph, Ghimel, He, Heth, Caph, 

 Ajin, Koph, Schin, and Thau, so considerably differing from those of the same 

 elements in the earlier Phoenician times, seem, he thinks, to render this incon- 

 testably clear. 



Mr. S. adds that the Punic and Phoenician alphabets were originally the very 



VOL. XII. D 



