FOOTNOTES:

1In B. xii. c. 32—it is supposed by some that it is the Roman Libra that is meant, under the name of “Mina,” as containing eighty-four Denarii. If so, it must be the old Roman Libra, as it is more generally thought that the Libra of Pliny’s time contained ninety-six Denarii, of sixty grains, within a fraction.

2One thousand Paces made a Roman “Mille Passuum,” or Mile, 1618 yards English.

3“Immensæ subtilitatis.” As Cuvier remarks, the ancients have committed more errors in reference to the insects, than to any other portion of the animal world. The discovery of the microscope has served more than anything to correct these erroneous notions.

4“Insecta,” “articulated.”

5The trunk of the gnat, Cuvier says, contains five silken and pointed threads, which together have the effect of a sting.

6The Teredo navalis of Linnæus, not an insect, but one of the mollusks. This is the same creature that is mentioned in B. xvi. c.80; but that spoken of in B. viii. c. 74, must have been a land insect.

7They respire by orifices in the sides of the body, known to naturalists asstigmata. The whole body, Cuvier says, forms, in a measure, a system of lungs.

8Cuvier remarks that the various noises made by insects are in reality not the voice, as they are not produced by air passing through a larynx.

9B. ix. c. 6.

10Cuvier remarks, that they have a nourishing fluid, which is of a white colour, and acts in place of blood.

11The dye of sæpia, Cuvier remarks, is not blood, nor does it act as such, being an excrementitious liquid. It has in addition a bluish, transparent, blood. The same also with the juices of the purple.

12“Nervos.” Cuvier says that all insects have a brain, a sort of spinal marrow, and nerves.

13“Tutius.”

14Insects have no fat, Cuvier says, except when in the chrysalis state; but they have a fibrous flesh of a whitish colour. They have also viscera, trachea, nerves, and a most complicated organization.

15“Melligo.” For further information on this subject consult Bevan on the Honey Bee.

16Or “conusis,” “gummy matter.”

17Pitch-wax.

18A kind of bee-glue; the origin of the name does not seem to be known. Reaumur says that they are all different varieties of bee-glue.

19See B. xxii. c. 50.

20Different combinations of the pollen of flowers, on which bees feed.

21It is formed from the honey that the bee has digested.

22Sorrel, or monk’s rhubarb.

23A kind of broom.

24Spanish broom, the Stipa tenacissima of Linnæus. Ropes were made of it. See B. xix. c. 7.

25Or, the “wild man.”

26Huber has discovered that there are two kinds of bees of neutral sex, or, as he calls them, unprolific females, the workers, which go out, and the nurses, which are smaller, and stay in the hive to tend the larvæ.

27From the honey found in the corollæ of flowers. This, after being prepared in the first stomach of the bee, is deposited in the cell which is formed for its reception.

28Cuvier says that the three kinds of cells are absolutely necessary, and that they do not depend on the greater or less abundance. Thekingof the ancients is what we know as thequeenbee, which is impregnated by the drones or males.

29This is the fact, but not so theirimperfectstate.

30They do not work, but merely impregnate the queen; after which they are driven from the hive, and perish of cold and starvation.

31It appears, as Cuvier says, that the ancients hadsomenotion that the swarm was multiplied by the aid of the drones.

32Cuvier says that the cell for the future queen is different from the others, and much larger. The bees also supply the queen larva much more abundantly with food, and of more delicate quality.

33Cuvier says that this coincidence with the number of the legs is quite accidental, as it is with the mouth that the animal constructs the cell.

34The basis of it is really derived from the calix or corolla of flowers.

35See B. iv. c. 24.

36In the last Chapter.

37Or “Flower-honey.”

38Season-honey.

39“Vinegar” is the ordinary meaning.

40Sillig remarks that the whole of this passage is corrupt.

41Hence, perhaps, its name of “acetum.”

42The people of Italy.

43The 10th of the calends of September, or 23rd August.

44Or “heath-honey.” In the north of England the hives are purposely taken to the moors.

45“Erice,” “heather,” seems to be a preferable reading to “myrice,” “tamarisk,” which is adopted by Sillig.

4612th September.

47“Tetralicem” seems preferable to “tamaricem.”

4813th November.

49“Unsmoked” honey.

50It takes place while they are on the wing.

51The only prolificfemale, in reality.

52Some unprolific females and some males, in reality.

53Cuvier thinks that either hornets, or else the drones, must be alluded to. Virgil, Georg. B. iv. l. 197,et seq., is one of those who think that bees are produced from flowers.

54I. e.from flowers.

55They arrange the eggs in the cells, but they cannot be said tosit.

56This is not the fact. The queen bee commences as a larva, and that the larva of a working bee, Cuvier says, which, placed in a larger cell, and nurtured in a different manner, developes its sex and becomes the queen of the new swarm.

57They are then in the chrysalis state.

58“Clavus.”

59It is the first hatchedqueenthat puts the others to death.

60In consequence, really, of their pregnancy.

61The greater size of the abdomen makes the wingslookshorter.

62The queen has a sting, like the working bees, but uses it less frequently.

63A place in Germany, where Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, gained a victory over the Germans: the locality is unknown.

64“Fur.” A variety, probably, of the drone.

65So Virgil says———“Hæc certamina tantaPulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescent.”—Georg.iv. 87.

65So Virgil says—

——“Hæc certamina tantaPulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescent.”—Georg.iv. 87.

66If it is left in the wound, the insect dies, being torn asunder.

67Of course this is fabulous, as the drones are males.

68Though belonging to the same class, they are not of degenerate kinds.

69The “mule-gnat.”

70See Virgil, Georg. B. iv. l. 27.

71The reading seems doubtful, and the meaning is probably unknown.

72“Injury of the young.”

73There are two kinds of hive-moth—the Phalæna tinea mellanella of Linnæus, and the Phalæna tortrix cereana. It deposits its larva in holes which it makes in the wax.

74In consequence of closing the stigmata, and so impeding their respiration. The same result, no doubt, is produced by the honey when smeared over their bodies.

75B. xxi. c. 42.

76Cuvier says that a hive has been known to last more than thirty years: but it is doubtful if bees ever live so long as ten, or, except the queen, little more than one.

77Though Virgil tells the same story, in B. iv. of the Georgics, in relation to the shepherd Aristæus, all this is entirely fabulous.

78Georg. B. iv. l. 284,et seq.

79Under roofs, and sometimes in the ground: hornets build in the hollows of trees.

80Called “Sphæx” by Linnæus.

81The true version is, that after killing the insect they bury it with their eggs as food for their future young.

82Cuvier says that it is the males, and not the females, that have no sting.

83What modern naturalists call the “Hymenoptera.”

84Some kind of wasp, or, as Cuvier says, probably the mason bee.

85Called “bombyx” also; though, as Cuvier remarks, of a kind altogether different from the preceding one.

86The first kinds of silk dresses worn by the Roman ladies were from this island, and, as Pliny says, were known by the name ofCoæ vestes. These dresses were so fine as to be transparent, and were sometimes dyed purple, and enriched with stripes of gold. They probably had their name from the early reputation which Cos acquired by its manufactures of silk.

87This account is derived from Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. v. c. 19.

88“Lanificia.”

89Early in the reign of Tiberius, as we learn from Tacitus, the senate enacted “ne vestis Serica viros fædaret”—“That men should not defile themselves by wearing garments of silk,” Ann. B. ii. c. 33.

90The Aranea lupus of Linnæus.

91As Cuvier observes, he has here guessed at the truth.

92They copulate in a manner dissimilar to that of any other insects—the male fecundates the female by the aid of feelers, which he introduces into the vulva of the female situate beneath the anterior part of the abdomen.

93Cuvier remarks, that the scorpion is viviparous; but the young are white when born, and wrapped up in an oval mass, for which reason they may easily be taken for maggots or grubs.

94This must be understood of the scorpion of Egypt, Libya, and Syria. The sting of that of the south of Europe is not generally dangerous.

95Cuvier seems to regard this as fanciful: he says that the instances ofsevenjoints are but rarely to be met with.

96There are no winged scorpions. Cuvier thinks that he may possibly allude to the panorpis, or scorpion-fly, the abdomen of which terminates in a forceps, which resembles the tail of the scorpion.

97Probably the panorpis.

98See B. xxix. c. 29.

99The starred or spotted lizard.

100The stellio of the Romans is the “ascalabos” or “ascalabotes” of the Greeks, the lizard into which Ascalabus was changed by Ceres: see Ovid, Met. B. v. l. 450,et seq.Pliny also mentions this in B. xxix. c. 4, though he speaks of some difference in their appearance. It is a species of gecko, the tarentola of Italy, the tarente of Provence, and the geckotta, probably, of Lacepède. The gecko, Cuvier says, is not venomous; but it causes small blisters to rise on the skin when it walks over it, the result, probably, of the extreme sharpness of its nails.

101See c.28of this Book, and B. viii. c. 95; B. xxx. c. 27.

102A general name for the grasshopper. Cuvier remarks, that Pliny is less clear on this subject than Aristotle, the author from whom he has borrowed.

103“Correptis” seems a preferable reading to “conrupti,” that adopted by Sillig.

104The female has this, and employs it for piercing dead branches in which to deposit its eggs.

105The “mother of the grasshopper.”

106The trunk of the grasshopper, Cuvier says, is situate so low down, that it seems to be attached to the breast. With it the insect extracts the juices of leaves and stalks.

107Or “twig-grasshopper.”

108Or “corn-grasshopper.”

109Or “oat-grasshopper.”

110The river Cæcina. See B. iii. c. 15. This river is by Strabo, B. vi. c. 260, called the Alex. Ælian has the story that the Locrian grasshoppers become silent in the territory of Rhegium, and those of Rhegium in the territory of Locri, thereby implying that they each have a note in its own respective country.

111Cuvier says that the observations in this Chapter, derived from Aristotle, are remarkable for their exactness, and show that that philosopher had studied insects with the greatest attention.

112Or sheath; the Coleoptera of the naturalists.

113The flying stag-beetle, the Lucanus cervus of Linnæus.

114The dung-beetle, the Scarabæus pilularius of Linnæus.

115Various kinds of crickets.

116Cuvier says that it is on the two sides of the abdomen that the male carries its light, while the whole posterior part of the female is shining.

117In the glow-worm of France, the Lampyris noctiluca of Linnæus, the female is without wings, while the male gives but little light. In that of Italy, the Lampyris Italica, both sexes are winged.

118“Blattæ.” See B. xxix. c. 39, where three kinds are specified.

119This beetle appears to be unknown. Cuvier suggests that the Scarabæus nasicornis of Linnæus, which haunts dead bark, or the Scarabæus auratus may be the insect referred to.

120“Fatal to the beetle.”

121Cuvier remarks that this assertion, borrowed from Aristotle, is incorrect. The wings of many of the Coleoptera are articulated in the middle, and so double, one part on the other, to enter the sheath.

122Cuvier remarks, that the panorpis has a tail very like that of the scorpion; and that the ephemera, the ichneumons and others, have tails also. Aristotle, in the corresponding place, only says that the insects do not use the tail to direct their flight.

123These are merely the feelers of the jaws.

124Not instead of, but in addition to, the tongue, by the aid of which they suck.

125Evidently meaning the trunk.

126See B. xxix. c. 39.

127It is not true that the young locusts are destitute of feet.

1287th May.

12918th July.

13011th May.

131Cuvier treats this story as purely imaginary.

132Cuvier says that some have been known nearly a foot long, but not more.

133He alludes to the ravages committed by the swarms of the migratory locust, Grillus migratorius of Linnæus.

134Julius Obsequens speaks of a pestilence there, created by the dead bodies of the locusts, which caused the death of 8000 persons.

135See also B. vi. c. 35.

136What are commonly called ants’ eggs, are in reality their larvæ and nymphæ. Enveloped in a sort of tunic, these last, Cuvier says, are like grains of corn, and from this probably has arisen the story that they lay up grains against the winter, a period through which in reality they do not eat.

137They stow away bits of meat and detached portions of fruit, to nourish their larvæ with their juices.

138It is in reality their larvæ that they thus bring out to dry. The working ants, or neutrals, are the ones on which these labours devolve: the males and females are winged, the working ants are without wings.

139“Ad recognitionem mutuam.”

140Some modern writers express an opinion that when they meet, they converse and encourage one another by the medium of touch and smell.

141See B. v. c. 31.

142M. de Veltheim thinks that by this is really meant the Canis corsac, the small fox of India, but that by some mistake it was represented by travellers as an ant. It is not improbable, Cuvier says, that some quadruped, in making holes in the ground, may have occasionally thrown up some grains of the precious metal. The story is derived from the narratives of Clearchus and Megasthenes. Another interpretation of this story has also been suggested. We find from some remarks of Mr. Wilson, in theTransactions of the Asiatic Society, on the Mahabharata, a Sanscrit poem, that various tribes on the mountains Meru and Mandara (supposed to lie between Hindostan and Tibet) used to sell grains of gold, which they calledpaippilaka, or “ant-gold,” which, they said, was thrown up by ants, in Sanscrit calledpippilaka. In travelling westward, this story, in itself, no doubt, untrue, may very probably have been magnified to its present dimensions.

143Cuvier observes, that this is a very correct account of the cabbage or radish butterfly, the Papilio brassicæ or Papilio raphani of Linnæus.

144Cossi. See B. xvii. c.37.

145Tæniæ.

146He alludes to the Morbus pediculosus.

147Aristotle says, in the corresponding passage, Hist. Anim. B. v. c. 26, that the animals which are affected by lice, are more particularly exposed to them when they change the water in which they wash.

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