devour the leaves, and leave nothing of the plant but a withered and barren stem.
" Brassica, cumque tiiment pallentia robora betæ,
Mercibus atque olitor gaudet securus adultis,
Et jam maturis quærit supponere falcem,
Sæpe ferus duros jaculatus Jupiter imbres,
Grandine dilapidans hominumqne boumque labores:
Sæpe etiam gvavidis irrorat pestifer undis,
Ex quibiis iufestæ Baccho, glaucisque salictis
Nascuntur Volucres, serpit Eruca per hortos.
Quos super ingrediens exurit semiua morsu,
Quæ capitis viduata coma, spoliataque nudo
Vertice, trunca jacent tristi conjuncta veneno[1]."
Here the Volucres and the Erucæ are mentioned by Columella as different insects; the first are described as enemies of the vine, the second as destructive to the willow. "Et quibus infestæ Baccho nascuntur Volucres, glaucisque salictis (infesta) serpit Eruca per hortos."
This interpretation, which does not appear doubtful, suggests a curious remark. It is this, that with the exception of the Latin translation of the Bible—the Vulgate—in which the word Gaza has been improperly rendered Eruca, the word Eruca has never been employed by the Latins, in its Latin form, to denote an enemy peculiar to the vine. Pliny and Columella mention the Eruca as the scourge of trees and plants in general, without excepting the vine, but they do not speak of it as its especial enemy; and when Palladius, in the passage which we have cited, gives a specific for the caterpillars infesting the vine, we have seen that he employs the word Campas and not Erucas.
This observation is not made with the intention of inferring from it, that among the names applied by the Latins to insects infesting the vine there are none denoting Caterpillars, or the larvæ of Lepidoptera; but it suggests the idea that the insects injurious to the vine mentioned under the names Involvulus, Convolvulus, Volvox, and Volucres by the Latins, were considered by them as particular species of worms or insects, and not as the larvæ of Lepidoptera, or Caterpillars, or of animals of the same nature as the Kampai and Erucæ; and that consequently the Latins were unacquainted with the metamorphoses of these species of insects.
In this critical examination I have been careful not to omit any words which are found employed in the writings which remain to us of the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans to denote insects destructive to the vine. I shall now pass to the second part of this memoir, in which we shall explain the ancient texts by the aid of modern science, and offer such practical considerations as may be useful to the agriculturist.
- ↑ Columella, book x., De Cultu Hortorum, ver. 326 to 336.
