96 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society Vol.X 



the unusual qualification of being entomologist as well as linguist 

 has first to correct many mistaken meanings and must take into 

 consideration that the Sanscrit authors had very vague ideas 

 about the insects themselves. Most of them represent some 

 observation of habit, injurious or otherwise, which cannot be 

 referred to any single species or even natural group. 



In one of the older Vedas there is advice to a prince not to 

 make too many enemies near home. " Even a proud serpent is 

 destroyed by insects when there are many of them." The word 

 used is kitai. It often occurs in the tropics that the driver ants 

 assail and overcome the large snakes by sheer force of numbers. 

 There is probably no other insect which performs the feat. Yet 

 it is not wholly fair to translate kitai as driver ant, for the word 

 may have a different application in some other passage. To call 

 it insect is all one can safely do. It has no known etymology and 

 may be one of many borrowed from Dravidian neighbors or 

 predecessors. 



A' similar passage in the Vedas speaks of the necessity of 

 weakening opposing armies internally. "Just as a fine timber 

 falls to pieces when riddled by insects." The word here is ghuna, 

 also of uncertain etymology. That it applies to wood boring in- 

 sects is indubitable. If the writer of the passage had himself a 

 concrete idea- on the subject, he might have understood many 

 kinds of beetle larvae, but more probably the termites (white 

 ants), for boring beetles seldom riddle timber until it falls 

 readily to pieces, while the damage by termites is generally com- 

 plete destruction. 



Another passage speaking of a slain foe: "the contents of his 

 bowels they kept for the gavartas." Roth translates this as 

 " maggots " with probable correctness. If the thing were an 

 animal or bird of prey it would have a well-understood name. 

 It refers almost certainly to some scavenger insect, the hosts of 

 which had no names. The word krimi is classic Sanscrit and 

 certainly means worms, undoubtedly a very general term. In 

 the Atharda Veda they are exorcised as an intestinal worm, of 

 which many kinds are known in India. 



Here is an invocation to a Serpent Divinity : " Let every wild 

 beast, every fly (mashika), every worm (krimi), sate itself on 

 the carrion of man, bitten by thee, O Arbudi !" 



