named Volvox by Pliny is the same as that which he names Convolvulus, for he himself distinguishes them.
After indicating the remedy for the Convolvulus, this author informs us that the Volvox is another animal which destroys the young grapes; and to prevent its propagation, he recommends that the knife employed to dress the vine should be wiped with the skin of the beaver, and the plant rubbed with bear's blood.
"Alii Volvocem appellant animal prærodens pubescentes uvas: quod ne accidat, fales, cum sint exacutæ fibrina pelle detergent, atque ita putant; sanguine ursino liniri volunt post putationem easdem."
XVII. Volucra.—Eruca.—We must consider these two words together, because we find them associated in the same passage of Columella; and indeed I am not certain that they ought to be separated from Volvox; for it must be stated, that in the passage of Pliny which I have just quoted, several editors read Volucra instead of Volvocem. Volvocem is however the reading of all the ancient manuscripts of Pliny; and the reading of Volucra has only been introduced, because there is a passage in Columella which, though rather different, appears to have been derived from the same source: and as it is impossible to substitute Volvox for Volucra in Columella,—this latter word being a second time employed in the plural, in a verse which cannot be altered without destroying the measure,—the editors of Pliny have decided upon altering the text to bring it into agreement with that of Columella. Columella's commentator,Gesner, justly censures this alteration, and recommends that the reading of the manuscripts should be preserved in these two authors, and that consequently the word Volvocem should be re-established in Pliny.
In his treatise upon trees, Columella[1], after mentioning the rats and mice which infest the vine, says: "Genus est animalis, Volucra appellatur, id fere prærodet teneras adhuc pampinos et uvas: quod ne fiat, falces quibus vineam putaveris, peracta putatione sanguine ursino linito…… Vel si pellem fibri habueris, in ipsa putatione quoties falcem acueris, ea pelle aciem detergito atque ita putare incipito."
"There is a kind of animals named Volucra, which destroys almost entirely the tender shoots of the vine and the grapes. To prevent its ravages, the vino after it is dressed should be frequently anointed with bear's blood, and the pruning-knife rubbed with beaver's skin every time it is sharpened."
Columella in his poem upon the cultivation of gardens, after speaking of culinary vegetables, recapitulates the enemies by which the hopes of the agriculturist are destroyed, viz. tempests, rain, hail, inundations, and, which are still more formidable, the Volucra and Caterpillar, enemies of Bacchus and green willow plats, which envenom the seed,
- ↑ Columella, De Arboribus, chap. 15. vol. i. p. 55.
