534 
pliky's natural histokt. 
[Book XYII. 
In the same way, too/^ to prevent the vine-fretter^* from at- 
tacking the tree, he recommends that two congii of amurca of 
olives should be boiled down to the consistency of honey, after 
which it must be boiled again with one-third part of bitumen, 
and one -fourth of sulphur : and this should be done, he says, in 
the open air, for fear of its igniting if prepared in- doors ; with 
this mixture, the vine is to be anointed at the ends of the 
branches and at the axils ; after which, no more fretters will 
be seen. Some persons are content to make a fumigation 
with this mixture while the wind is blowing towards the vine, 
for three days in succession. 
Many persons, again, attribute no less utilitj^ and nutritious 
virtue to urine than Cato does to amurca ; only they add to 
it an equal proportion of water, it being injurious if employed 
by itself. Some give the name of volucre"^^ to an insect 
which eats away the young grapes : to prevent this, the}^ rub 
the pruning-knife, every time it is sharpened, upon a beaver- 
skin, and then prune the tree with it : it is recommended also, 
that after the pruning, the knife should be well rubbed with 
the blood of a bear.^^ Ants, too, are a great pest to trees ; 
they are kept away, liowever, by smearing the trunk with red 
earth and tar : if a fish, too, is hung up in the vicinity of the 
tree, these insects will collect in that one spot. Another 
method, again, is to pound lupines in oil,^^ and anoint the 
roots with the mixture. Many people kill both ants as well 
as moles with amurca, and preserve apples from caterpillars 
as well as from rotting, \>y touching the top of the tree with 
the gall of a green lizard. 
Another method, too, of preventing caterpillars, is to make 
a woman, with her monthly courses on her, go round each 
tree, barefooted and ungirt. Again, for the purpose of pre- 
At the present day, fumigations are preferred to any such mixtures 
as those here described. Caterpillars are killed hy the fumes of sulphur, 
bitumen, or damp straw. 
Convolvulus." He alludes to the vine Pyralis, one of the Lepidoptera, 
the caterpillar of which rolls itself up in the leaves of the tree, after eating 
away the foot-stalk. 
The fly," or winged" insect. The grey weevil, Fee thinks, that 
eats the buds and the young grapes. ^'^ An absurd superstition. 
This may possibly be efficacious, but the other precepts here given are 
full of absurdity. 
It might possibly drive them to a distance, but would do no more. 
An absurd notion, very similar to some connected with the same sub- 
ject, which have prevailed even in recent times. 
