168 BARON WALCKENAER ON THE INSECTS 
fectly-described those with which they were acquainted. This con- 
viction was quickly impressed upon the mind witk regard to the smaller 
species of animals, because upon this point their ignorance was the 
greatest, and the application of the notions which they had aequired to 
the knowledge of the moderns the most difficult and perplexing. 
With regard to insects in particular, it was easy to see that the an- 
cients had treated of only a very small number, and that with great in- 
accuracy; their works on this elass of animals consequently ceased to 
occupy attention, which was exclusively devoted to the study of na- 
ture, and the science soon advanced rapidly. 
However, the names that the ancients had imposed upon some classes 
of insects easily recognised remained, having passed from the ancient 
languages into the vernacular tongues. The more obscure names, the 
signification of which was doubtful or unknown, were employed by the 
modern naturalists for the numerous genera which the progress of science 
rendered it necessary to establish. Naturalists did not resolve to invent 
new names until all those employed by the ancients in the elasses which 
they were studying were exhausted; and even then all, exeepting M- 
Adanson, composed the new names from Greek or Latin roots. But 
even when naturalists gave names employed by the ancients to the ge- 
nera of insects which they had formed, it was generally without any idea 
of applying them to the species which they had been employed by the 
ancients to designate, and without any attempt to aid in the recognition 
of those species. That a name had been used by some ancient author 
to designate an insect of some kind, or that there was uo certain proof 
of the contrary, has been deemed a sufficient reason by modern ento- 
mologists for the application ef an ancient name to a new genus. Our 
entomological systems contain names employed by the ancients, the signi- 
fication of which is so entirely lost that it is matter of doubt whether they 
belonged to an animal or a plant. 
It is necessary for the object that I have im view to illustrate this by 
an example, which is far from being the only one which I could pro- 
duce. 
M. Camus, the translator into Freneh of Aristotle’s Natural History 
of Animals*, remarks with reason in his notes, that commentators are 
divided with regard to the signification of the word Staphylinus, em- 
ployed by that philosopher. Some have considered it as the name of 
an insect, others as that of a plant; but, says Camus, on the authority 
of the “Dictionnaire d’ Histoire Naturelle de Valmont de Bomare,” in 
which he found the word Staphylinus, “The Staphylinus is an insect 
well known to naturalists, because it has preserved its name as well in 
the Latin as in the French.” From these words we learn that Camus 
* Camus, Hist. Nat. des Animaua d’ Aristote, Ato, t: li. p. 783. 
