dressing to me, respecting the interpretation of the name of an insect infesting the vine mentioned by Plautus. The text of this author in the passage alluded to is so explicit that I ventured immediately to give the solution required. To assure myself that I was not mistaken I commenced an examination of what ancient and modern authors had written on the species of insects infesting the vine, and the means of destroying them; but in explaining and arranging the ancient texts, and in afterwards applying them to the observations of the moderns, I found more difficulties than I expected; I however exerted all my efforts to surmount them. Such was the origin of this Memoir. The subject will doubtless appear minute, but as learning, natural history, and agriculture are equally interested in it, I think it cannot be considered either futile or unworthy of attention.
This Memoir will be divided into three sections. The first, which will be in some degree preparatory, will contain a critical examination of the ancient texts relative to the signification of the names of insects designated in them as being particularly injurious to the vine.
In the second section, by means of results obtained in the first, I shall determine which are the species of insects known to the ancients and moderns as being those injurious to the vine: I shall then indicate the means of preventing their ravages.
In the third section this dissertation will be terminated by a concordance of names, that is to say, a synonymy of all the species of insects mentioned in these researches, arranged in classes, which will render its application to use easy to those naturalists and agriculturists who may think proper to have recourse to it.
First Section.
I. Preliminaries.—This section is, as I have already said, only preparatory to the principal object of the Memoir.
No application of modern names to interpret the ancient texts will here be made; but we shall content ourselves with investigating the signification of the ancient words, by means of the use to which the ancients themselves have applied them. In the second section the circumstances or the particulars of this use will enable us to interpret the ancient names, that is to say, to ascertain the names corresponding to them in the language of naturalists, the only names applicable to the definitions and descriptions proper to determine with precision the objects named. The vulgar names will be only a secondary consideration.
For objects, the differences of which escape superficial observation, the
