BY WHICH THE VINE IS INFESTED. 169 
was ignorant that the application of the word Staphylinus to a genus of 
insects of the class Coleoptera, now divided into a great number of ge- 
nera bearing other names, is not more ancient than the time of Linnzus, 
who was the first to employ this word in its present signification, with- 
out attempting to determine that which it bears in Aristotle, whom he 
does not quote. 
As to the superior orders of animals, such as quadrupeds, birds, fishes, 
and reptiles, naturalists have been careful to establish, whenever it was 
possible, the identity of the species which they have described with 
those mentioned by the ancients; and for this reason, that the latter nave 
recorded facts that have not since been so well observed, and some that 
have not been observed at all,and because still they all form part of the 
science; but this is not the case with insects. Notwithstanding the im- 
perfection of the science of entomology, the most difficult branch of 
natural history, the moderns have made such progress in it that they 
have nothing to learn from the ancients upon this subject; if, therefore, 
we except the domestic bee, the caterpillar of Bombix Mori, or the 
silk-worm, two species of insects as important as the largest animals in 
the history of man, of commerce, and of the arts, we shall find that the 
moderns have occupied themselves very little with what the ancients 
have said upon insects: at the same time, the names that they have 
borrowed from them prove that they had read their works upon the 
subject, and that they would willingly have established, by the identity 
of the objects upon which they were employed, a direct relation between 
their labours and those of ‘the naturalists who had preceded them in 
ancient times ; but they appear to have considered this to be too difficult, 
or as impossible to be undertaken with success. This is the reason that 
the number of dissertations upon this subject is so small; and even of 
the few that we possess the object is only to discover to what class of 
insects the ancient name should be applied, not to determine the genus 
or the species. 
If the science of natural history has little to hope from such investi- 
gations, they may yet be subservient to the acquisition of a better and 
more exact interpretation of the ancient texts; and the difficulties with 
which the subject is attended ought not to induce us to neglect it. With 
regard to this, as well as all the uncultivated parts of the vast field of 
erudition, we may say, if this had been easy it is probable that it would 
not have remained undone. 
The above are the considerations which have induced me to write, 
and submit to the Academy the researches*, to which I was led by a 
question which one of my learned brethren did me the honour of ad- 
* These researches were read before the Academy of Inscriptions, of which 
the author is a member, before they were communicated to the Entomological 
Society. ‘ : 
