iS TRAVELS IN UPPER 



It was known at Marseilles, that it would re- 

 quire some time to complete the armament of the 

 frigate fitting out at Toulon. I proposed to make 

 an excursion into Languedoc, and, accompanied 

 by M. Tott's secretary, travelled by land to Cette, 

 of which Vernet has painted a superb view. In 

 the course of my walks round the city I picked up 

 some volcanic substances, and along the shore a 

 variety of shells and other marine productions. I 

 was astonished to find on the very brink of the sea, 

 and in the humid sea-weed, a singular species of 

 scarab, very rare in the north of France, and which 

 has been decorated with the name of phalangiste*, 

 because it is pretended that the long points of his 

 corslet have some resemblance to the pikes with 

 which the soldiers of the Macedonian phalanx were 

 armed. This is what the partisans of method in 

 natural history call vulgar names. And what a 

 strange vulgar name is that which, in order to be 

 understood, requires the most exact knowledge of 

 antiquity! Linnaeus has denominated the same in- 

 sect the giant Typhceus-f, which assuredly has no- 

 thing vulgar in it, and which seems but indifferently 

 descriptive of a scarab a few lines in length, and 



* Geoffroi, Hist, abregee des Insectes des Environs de Paris, 

 torn. I. p. 72, plate V. fig. 3. 



■\ Scarabcsus Tjphxus, Lin. Syst. Nat. — Fabricius, Spec. In- 

 sect, p. 10, 



whose 



