BY WHICH THE VINE IS INFESTED. 205 
» It appears evident, as has been advanced by Valckenaer, Bochart, and 
the most learned philologists, that the Zks of certain authors, an insect 
which infests the vine, is the same word as the Jps employed by other 
authors as the name of an insect which also infests the vine, and that 
Ips, Ipes, Iks, Ihes, are only differences of dialect.. This agreed, it is 
evident from our critical examination, that the conclusion to be formed 
from the information we receive from the Greek authors, including the 
grammarians and lexicographers of the lower ages, is, that Jps is em- 
ployed as the name of an insect which preys upon horn and meat, and 
also of one which infests the vine, of which it devours the buds, either 
in the state of larva or as the perfect insect. We learn from this that 
the name of Zps or ks was applied by the ancients to two or three 
different species of insects or larve of insects. But since the ancients 
confounded these species, and assigned them but one name, there must 
necessarily be an analogy between them. There is only one species of 
the larvee of the Coleoptera or Scarabzei possessing trophi, or organs for 
manducation, sufficiently hard to pierce horn. The Ips of Homer and 
of St. John Chrysostom belongs therefore to the Coleoptera, conse- 
quently the Zps of meat and of the vine must also belong to that class. 
As we are treating of an insect which preys upon horn and meat, 
naturalists know that it must belong to Linnzus’s tribe of Dermestes, 
the larve of which are so formidable to their collections. They are 
not ignorant that these insects are found in warehouses of furs, in 
offices, pantries, and all places which receive animal matters, and that 
they spare neither horn nor feathers; but our knowledge of them is 
not ‘sufficient to determine to what genus of modern entomologists 
those Dermestes belong which prey upon old goat’s horn, particu- 
larly upon that of the AEgagrus, of which the bow of Ulysses was 
formed, and which is particularly mentioned by Homer. We are well 
acquainted only with the metamorphoses of the Dermestes lardarius, 
and the Dermestes Pellio, the Dermestes of bacon and furs. These in- 
sects belong to the numerous family of the Mitidularie of Latreille*. 
Degeer}+ long ago separated from the Dermestes a genus to which he 
judiciously gave the name of Ips; but this name has been since given 
to genera very different to that which he had created, though they also 
were formed from the numerous family cf the Dermestes. It might 
possibly be the same larva which infested horn and meat, as is asserted 
by the grammarian published by Boissonade ; it is also possible that the 
ancients confounded the larvee of two affinal but different genera. But 
* Latreille, in Cuvier’s Tab. du Régne Animal, vol. iv. p. 503. Schcenherr, 
Synonymia Insect., vol. i. part ii. p. 236. No. 25. Walckenaer, Faun. Paris., 
vol. i. p. 124. No. 2. Panzer, Faun. Insect. Germ, lxxxix. 12. Fabr., Syst. 
Eleuth., vol. i. p. 422. 
+ Degeer, Mém. pour servir al Hist. des Ins., vol. v..p. 190. 
