of Julus, given to a genus of insects by the moderns, corresponds exactly to the Julus or Joulos of the ancients; especially if the modern signification of the word be restrained to the genus Julus of Leach[1], as defined in his excellent work upon the polypodous insects, excluding the Polydesmata and other genera, which have with propriety been removed from it. The Juli which the ancients had in view were probably the terrestrial Julus and the Julus sabulosus of modern entomologists, and the common Julus of M. Soavi, erroneously confounded with the former two. These insects are found on the earth under stones; they feed upon the leaves and fruits which fall upon the ground and are there decomposed; but they neither injure the vine nor any other plant. As they are found under the shadow of the vine, as well as in all other dark and humid places, the injuries arising from another cause have been attributed to them.
IV. Biurus.—Grillo-talpa.—Mole-cricket.—The word which, after Spondyle and Julios, has the least relation to our subject of those which we have passed in review is Biurus. I find it only in an isolated passage of Cicero, cited by Pliny, in which it is said that this animal destroys the vines of Campania. Thus, it is not mentioned as an enemy to the vine, correctly speaking, but as injuring the vines of Campania in particular, by its rapid multiplication. Perhaps also in this passage, which Pliny only quotes incidentally, Cicero was speaking of a particular case in which the Biuri were seen to be injurious to the new plantations of vines in Campania, though they would be incapable of injuring them when the roots had acquired sufficient hardness to resist their attacks. Whatever be the fact, the etymology of the word Bi-Uros, which, as we have seen, implies an insect armed at its posterior extremity with a double tail, directs us to the Mole-cricket and the larger species of locusts (Sauterelles), the only insects so formed that can answer to the particulars specified, from their size and the destruction which they cause, and of ravaging vine plantations extending over a whole country. But the locust having been well known to the Latins under the name of Locusta, and to the Greeks under that of Acris[2], it follows that the name of Biurus is applicable only to the Mole-cricket. The probability of this is increased by these circumstances: that this insect is the largest which is known in our parts of Europe, it being not less than an inch and half in length; that it is one of the most singular in its formation, and one of the most destructive; that it cannot be recognised in any of the descriptions of insects transmitted to us by the ancients; and lastly, that, in all the writings which they have left us, the name Biurus is the only one that can be applied to it.
