INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE VINE. 131 



who gives the names applied to various insects from the sub- 

 stances they inhabit, or are destructive to, iks is the worm 

 of the vine, and ips the worm feeding on flesh and horn. 



Are we now in possession of sufficient information to enable 

 us to distinguish these two species of insects, and shall we 

 call them by different names ? Or is the distinction alluded 

 to one falsely established by grammarians and lexicographers, 

 who out of one word, with some slight alteration, have use- 

 lessly made two different words ? We have, however, nothing 

 to do with these inquiries at present, we must here confine 

 ourselves to collecting those facts which a critical examination 

 of the passages may afford us, without any anticipatory view 

 of the conclusions we may have to deduce therefrom : these 

 will come afterwards. We may now conclude from all that 

 has been said: — 



First, That by the most learned ancient authors who have 

 treated ex prqfesso of agriculture, natural history, and geo- 

 graphy, the word ips is only used for the larva of an insect 

 injurious to the vine : 



Secondly, That in Homer, St. Chrysostom, and the lexico- 

 graphers and grammarians, who lived during the decline, the 

 word ips is exclusively employed to designate the larva of an 

 insect which eats horn : 



Thirdly, That the word iks, whether different from ips, 

 or the same word in another dialect, was applied by Alcman, 

 and the lexicographers and grammarians of the lower ages, 

 exclusively to an insect injurious to the vine, the shoots of 

 which it eats. 



7. Spondylus, or Sphondylus. 



Aristotle, in his Natural History of Animals/ after having 

 described the way in which flies and beetles copulate, adds, 

 the spondylus (or sphondylus) the phalangia, and other insects, 

 copulate in the same manner. 



I have said spondylus or sphondylus, becaus^cthe editors 

 and translators of Aristotle's work are divided on the word. 

 M. Schneider has written in the Greek text spondyldi, and 

 M. Camus sphondylai : both make it an insect, because here 



' Arist. Hist. An. lib. v. c. 7, ed. Schneider, torn. ii. p. 181 de la traduction, et 

 torn. i. p. 190, du grec, et liv. v. c. 8, torn. i. p. 219, de la traduction de Le Camus. 



