BY WHICH THE VINE IS INFESTED. 189 
devour the leaves, and leave nothing of the plant but a withered and 
barren stem. 
‘« Brassica, cumque tument pallentia robora betz, 
Mereibus atque olitor gaudet securus adultis, 
Et jam maturis querit supponere falcem, 
Seepe ferus duros jaculatus Jupiter imbres, 
Grandine dilapidans hominumque boumque labores : 
Szepe etiam gravidis irrorat pestifer undis, 
Ex quibus infestze Baccho, glaucisque salictis 
Nascuntur Volucres, serpit Eruca per hortos. 
Quos super ingrediens exurit semina morsu, 
Que capitis Sriisis coma, spoliataque nudo | 
Vertice, trunca jacent tristi conjuncta veneno*.” 
Here the Volucres and the Eruce are mentioned by Columella as 
different insects ; the first are described as enemies of the vine, the se- 
cond as destructive to the willow. -“H¢ qguibus infeste Baccho nascuntur 
Volucres, glaucisque salictis (infesta) serpit Eruca per hortos.” 
This interpretation, which does not appear doubtful, suggests a curious 
remark. It is this, that with the exception of the Latin translation of 
the Bible—the Vulgate—in which the word Gaza has been improperly 
rendered Hruca, the word Eruca has never been employed by the La- 
tins, in its Latin form, to denote an enemy peculiar to the vine. Pliny 
and Columella mention the Erwca as the scourge of trees and plants in 
general, without excepting the vine, but they do not speak of it as its 
especial enemy ; and when Palladius, in the passage which we have 
cited, gives a specific for the caterpillars infesting the vine, we have 
seen that he employs the word Campas and not Erucas. 
This observation is not made with the intention of inferring from it, 
that among the names applied by the Latins to insects infesting the 
vine there are none denoting Caterpillars, or the larvae of Lepidoptera; 
but it suggests the idea that the insects injurious to the vine mentioned 
under the names Jnvolvulus, Convolvulus, Volvox, and Volucres by 
the Latins, were considered by them as particular species of worms or 
insects, and not as the larve of Lepidoptera, or Caterpillars, or of ani- 
mals of the same nature as the Kampai and Hruce ; and that conse- 
quently the Latins were unacquainted with the metamorphoses of these 
species of insects. 
In this critical examination I have been careful not to omit any words 
which are found employed in the writings which remain to us of the 
Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans to denote insects destructive to the vine. 
I shall now pass to the second part of this memoir, in which we shall 
explain the ancient texts by the aid of modern science, and offer such 
practical considerations as may be useful to the agriculturist. 
* Columella, book x., De Culiu Hortorum, ver. 826 to 336. ‘ 
