190 BARON WALCKENAER ON THE INSECTS 
Second Section. 
Determination of the species of insects known to the ancients and 
moderns, by which the vine is infested, and indication of the means 
of preventing their ravages. 
I. Preliminary Remarks—In the first part of these researches, I 
examined the ancient texts in which the names of insects injurious to 
the vine occur, taking the authors in chronological order whenever 
this plan did not destroy the relations of etymology or derivation 
existing between the words the signification of which was to be deter- 
mined. This method appeared to me the only one adapted to the 
attainment of the end which I proposed. 
All languages vary, and, like the people by whom they are spoken, 
experience the effects of time, revolutions, and custom. Various con- 
temporary writers employ the same words in different senses, either 
because they do not possess the same degree of knowledge of the 
things designated by them, or because they differ from each other with 
respect to the intention with which the terms in question are employed ; 
one writer being required to limit his meaning to one simple, special, or 
rigorous sense, and another, on the contrary, having in view a figura- 
tive sense only, or a vague or general notion. 
The examination of all the texts in which the same word is employed, 
has furnished us with the signification, more or less determinate, which 
each author attached to the word, and also with the different circum- 
stances and particulars contained in each text relative to the insect 
named, which consequently may serve as means to distinguish it. 
We have been careful to recapitulate the various significations which 
result from our critical examination of each word; to compare the 
imperfect notions of the ancients with the more precise knowledge of 
the moderns; it will therefore only be requisite to recall to our minds 
the result of each of these examinations, without being perplexed, in 
this last and difficult investigation, by philological discussions. Should 
we be forced to commence new inquiries of this nature, it will only be 
with regard to words which offer matter for curious or useful digres- 
sions, and not in relation to those which essentially belong to the sub- 
ject of which we are treating. 
But it will not here be requisite to follow the same order of discus- 
sion which we thought it necessary to adopt in our first section. We 
are not now endeavouring to determine the significations given by each 
author to a certain word, independently of its real sense, but to ascer- 
tain that real sense from the various significations that have been 
ascribed to the word, and the different applications which have been 
made of it. Things, not words, are now the subjects under considera- 
