BY WHICH THE VINE IS INFESTED. 191 
tion ; things must therefore indicate the order to be followed in deter- 
mining the value of words. We therefore commence with’ insects 
which are only slightly connected with our subject, or upon which the 
ancients havé furnished us with particulars from hich only vague and 
uncertain or too general notions can be derivéd; and we shall pass suc- 
cessively to those insects which are the principal objects of our re- 
searches, and for which the texts furnish us with circumstantial details 
and more precise methods of determination ; according to the custom 
of algebraists, who first eliminate from their equations the parasitic 
quantities, or those which furnish only imperfect data for the solution 
of the problems to be solved. 
Il. Spondyle, or Sphondyle-—Scarabeus Melolontha of Linneus.— 
The Chafer (Hanneton).—Digression on the various species of Chafers 
known to the ancients, on several Scarabei which are allied to that 
genus, and on the employment of the word Melolontha by the ancients and 
the moderns. 
According to the order which we have marked out, the word Spon- 
dyle, or Sphondyle, claims priority. 
The conclusions derived from the examination and comparison of the 
texts are, that the larva of this insect is sufficiently large to have been 
taken for a small serpent; and that it preys upon the roots of all sorts of 
plants, excepting that of the Aristolochia, or Wild Vine, Vitis sylvestris, 
which is the Clematis or another plant, but which is hot the Vine*. ° 
We are acquainted with only one species of larva which fulfills these 
conditions; it is the common Cockchafer, so well known and so much 
dreaded by horticulturists under the name of the white worm. The 
larva of the Melolontha Fullo, or of the Melolontha vulgaris of modern 
naturalists, according to the results we have obtained, is the Spondyle 
of Aristotle and Pliny. 
I find in Aldrovandus+ that Agricola said that the modern Greeks 
give the name of Spondyle to a species of worm of the size of the 
little finger, with the head of a reddish colour, and the body white, 
which is found in the earth entwined around the roots of esculent 
vegetables. This is certainly the larva of the Chafer. Did Agricola 
receive this information from modern Greeks, and is the word Spon- 
‘dyle still employed by them to denote the white worm ? 
If the Spondyle of Pliny is the same as that of Aristotle, it follows that 
‘the latter naturalist, who designated a perfect insect by this name, was 
acquainted with its metamorphosis ; which will not appear surprising if 
we remember that Aristotle, as I have already observed, has exceedingly 
well described the metamorphosis of the Cabbage Butterfly, and that 
after that description he generalizes the fact, and remarks that the 
* Aristotle and Pliny. See p. 179, antea. 
+ Aldrovandus, De Insectis: Frankfort, 1618, p. 225. 
