Dermestes counterfeit death when they are touched, and this conformity of habit must have contributed to the error of the ancient authors in confounding together the Ips which preys upon horn and that which infests the vine. But there are still stronger reasons which prove that the Volucra or Volvox of the Latins is the same insect as the Ips or Iks of the Greeks. Pliny and Columella inform us that the Volucra or Volvox was a different insect from the Convolvulus. This difference between two insects which both infested the vine must necessarily have been complete and radical, since it was remarked by the ancients, who possessed so little information upon this class of animals. We shall show presently that the Convolvulus was one of the Lepidoptera or Butterflies; the Volucra or Volvox must belong to a totally different class. Now among insects there are only the larvæ and the insects of the Coleoptera, and the caterpillars or larvæ of the Lepidoptera, which are very injurious to the vine; the Volucra or Volvox must therefore belong to the class Coleoptera. Besides, we learn from Pliny and Columella that the Volucra or Volvox infested both the young shoots and the grapes. Pliny says, "Volvocem animal prærodens pubescentes uvas;" and Columella, "Genus animalis Volucra prærodit teneras adhuc pampinas et uvas." These expressions apply solely and entirely to the Eumolpus of the vine and the Ips of the Greeks, and not to the Cantharides of the Geoponics, the Rhynchites Bacchus or Betuleti, which injures the vine by rolling up the leaves and causing them to wither, but which does not attack the fruit. Neither can they be applied, as we shall shortly see, to the various species of the caterpillars or larvæ of the Lepidoptera which attack the vine.
It is therefore proved that the Ips or Iks of the Greeks is the Volucra or Volvox of the Latins, and the Eumolpus of the vine the Eumolpus Vitis of modern entomologists.
VIII. Involvulus.—Convolvulus.—Pyralis of Bosc d'Antic.—Vercoquin.—Procris Vitis, or Procris ampelophaga.—Vine-moth.—Grape-moth.—Tortrix Heperana.—Cochylis Roserana.—From the recipes given by Pliny and Cato to prevent the multiplication of the Convolvulus, we learn that it was an insect eminently destructive of the vine; but as they neither give any description of it nor furnish us with any particulars respecting it, excepting that it was a different species from the Volucra or Volvox, we have no means of ascertaining whether this name applies to the same insect as is denoted by the name Involvulus employed by Plautus in the passage which has been quoted. In this uncertainty, the similarity of the roots and the conformity of the onomatopœia, indicative of similar habits and industry, will not allow us to separate these two words, and induce us to presume that they were employed to designate the same object, or rather that they are one name, to which are adjoined two different particles, which do not alter its sig-
