206 BARON WALCKENAER ON THE INSECTS 
certainly the insect designated by the ancients as preying on horn and 
meat cannot be the same as that whose worm or larva feeds upon the 
young shoots of the vine. However, to render the same name applicable 
to them both, they must have belonged to the class Coleoptera, the larve 
of which could not be confounded with caterpillars, or the larve of 
Lepidoptera; the perfect insect which destroys the shoots of the vine 
must also resemble the Dermestes in form and dimensions. All these 
conditions meet in the Humolpus Vitis, the Eumolpus of the vine of 
modern naturalists, which is one of the greatest scourges of that plant. 
This insect, which is of a black and blood-red colour, belongs.to a genus 
which has been separated from the Cryptocephali*, and is vulgarly known 
-under the names of the Cryptocephalus ( Gribouris) of the vine, Béche, 
Lisette, and Téte-cache, because its head is covered by its corselet. It 
feeds upon the buds of the vine, or on the young shoots of that plant 
which still remain herbaceous, which it cuts in two and causes entirely to 
perish. It feeds also upon grapes. The great injuries inflicted by this 
insect upon the vine is an additional reason for considering it as the Ips 
_of the ancients. As Strabo observes, we can imagine that the veneration 
in which the memory of Hercules was held in a country planted with the 
vine was more on account of his supposed destruction of this plague than 
of his victory over the Nemzan lion, and why the cultivators were so 
anxious to obtain and employ recipes for the destruction of these vermin. 
When the ancients spoke of the Zps or Jks as a worm which appeared in 
the spring, they had in view the larva of the Eumolpus of the vine. The 
larva of this insect is oval ; it has six feet; its head is scaly and armed 
with two small maxillea+. The insect named Jps or [ks by the Greeks, 
was called Volucra or Volvox by the Latins; but with this difference, 
that the word Jps and Jks were applied to the larva of this insect, while 
Volucra and Volvox were the names of the perfect insect. This is 
proved by the use of the word animal, and not vermis, which Pliny and 
Columella employ when speaking of the Volucra or Volvox ; while the 
Ips is always spoken of as a worm by the Greeks. The name Volucra 
has probably been given to these larvee in consequence of the prompti- 
tude with which they escape from the hand which endeavours to seize 
them, for they drop down upon the earth as soon as the leaf in which 
they are enveloped is touched; and the name Volvox is undoubtedly 
derived from this insect’s habit of rolling itself up in leaves. Forcellini, 
in his dictionary, gives the Italian word Ritoritelli as the equivalent of 
the word Volucra ; this vulgar name of an insect of the vine in Italy has 
evidently the same origin as Volvox. Nearly all the insects of the genus 
* Buchoz, Hist. Nat. des Ins. nuisibles a 1 Homme, 1782, 12mo, p. 158 to 163. 
+ Latreille, Nouv. Dict. d’ Hist. Nat., vol. x. p. 358. He quotes Olivier, 
No. 96. pl. 1. fig. 1; but this figure does not represent the insect of the vine, but 
is a species from Brazil, the Eumolpus ignitus, which is a different insect. =~ 
. 
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