Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/189

 by the Ips; this occurs in places exposed to the winds, where there is a free current of air, and no excess of humidity."

In the Geoponics it is said, "that to prevent the little worms named Ipas from attacking the vines, the reeds used for the vine-props should be smoked, because the reeds decomposing in the earth engender little worms, which will othemise ascend upon the vine."

Galien, cited by Aldrovandus, says that the black earth kills the Ipes.

In the Dictionary of Suidas the word Ipi is defined by Worm; but it is remarked that Ips is a better expression. That work, however, does not furnish any other information upon the word Ips.

But the name Ips in a form slightly altered, or another insect under a name differing but little from that, is mentioned by several authors as being very hurtful to the vine.

In a fragment of Alcman quoted by Bochart:, it is said that "the variegated Ika is the scourge of the young shoots of the vine."

The grammarian Ammonius in bis Treatise upon Synonyms, says also, "the Ikes are animalcula which destroy the buds of the vine."

Bochart thinks that Ips and Iks are but one word, according to two different dialects.

Valckenaer in his notes upon Ammonius is of the same opinion: Ego verisimilam censeo (says this accomplished critic,) ''Sam. Bocharti sententiam qui ab Alcman Ika, ex dialecto pro Ipa positum sagaciter animadvertit, et ex idoneis auctoribics loca produxit in quibus, qui in vitibus nascuntur vermiculi Ipes dicuntur." Valckenaer concludes with Bochart that Ips'' is the most ancient form of the word.

However in Hesychius, and in another grammarian quoted by M. Boissonade, these two words are distinguished from each other and applied to two different insects.

In Hesychius's Dictionary we find Iks as the name of an animalculum (Theridion) which infests the vine; and in the same work Ips has this explanation, that this word is employed by grammarians to denote an insect which preys upon horn.

The anonymous grammarian cited by M. Boissonade in his notes to his edition of Herodiani, enumerating the various names attributed to the different species of worms or larvæ, according to the substances in which they lodge, or which they destroy, mentions Iks as the worm of the vine, and Ips as that of meat and horn.

Have these two species of insects been accurately distinguished from each other, and the habit acquired of expressing them by different