Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/192

 the second. As it is certain that, in Europe at least, no serpent injures the roots of plants, from the comparison of this passage of Pliny with that of Aristotle we deduce the following facts:

1st. That the larva of the insect named Spondyle by the Greeks was known to the Latins, and that it devoured the roots of plants of every kind.

2nd. That this larva was very large, since it was compared to a small serpent.

We shall see hereafter the consequences deducible from these circumstances.

It may perhaps be said that this long discussion on the word Spondyle might have been omitted, because Pliny speaks only of the wild vine, Vitis silvestris, which is not really the vine, nor has it any relation to the plant producing grapes, but which was an annual, like the Aristolochia, as Pliny himself informs us. To this I reply, that the vine is included in the plants mentioned by Pliny as being exposed to the attacks of the Spondyle, and that consequently anything relating to this insect belongs strictly to my subject.