DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0044
18
TRAVELS IN UPPER
It was known at Marseilles, that it would re-
quire some time to complete the armament of the
frigate fitting out at Toulon. I proposed to make
an excursion into Languedoc, and, accompanied
by M. Tott's secretary, travelled by land to Cette,
of which Vernet has painted a superb view. In
•the course of my walks round the city I picked up
some volcanic substances, and along the shore a
variety of shells and other marine productions. I
-was astonished to find on the very brink of the sea,
■and in the humid sca-weed, a singular species of
scarab, very rare in the north of France, and which
has been decorated with the name oiphalangiste*,
because it is pretended that the long points of his
corslet have some resemblance to the pikes with
which the soldiers of the Macedonian phalanx were
armed. This is what the partisans of method in
natural history call vulgar names. And what a
strange vulgar name is that which, in order to be
understood, requires the most exact knowledge of
antiquity! Linnaeus has denominated the same in-
sect the giant Typftxus-^, which assuredly has no-
thing vulgar init, and which seemsbut indifferently
descriptive of a scarab a few lines in length, and
* Geoffroi, Hist, abregce des Insectes des Environs de Paris,
tom. I. p. 72, plate V. fig. 3.
f Scarabaiis Tyfhaus, Lin. Syst. Nat.;—Fabridus, Spec. In-
sect, p. 10*
whose
TRAVELS IN UPPER
It was known at Marseilles, that it would re-
quire some time to complete the armament of the
frigate fitting out at Toulon. I proposed to make
an excursion into Languedoc, and, accompanied
by M. Tott's secretary, travelled by land to Cette,
of which Vernet has painted a superb view. In
•the course of my walks round the city I picked up
some volcanic substances, and along the shore a
variety of shells and other marine productions. I
-was astonished to find on the very brink of the sea,
■and in the humid sca-weed, a singular species of
scarab, very rare in the north of France, and which
has been decorated with the name oiphalangiste*,
because it is pretended that the long points of his
corslet have some resemblance to the pikes with
which the soldiers of the Macedonian phalanx were
armed. This is what the partisans of method in
natural history call vulgar names. And what a
strange vulgar name is that which, in order to be
understood, requires the most exact knowledge of
antiquity! Linnaeus has denominated the same in-
sect the giant Typftxus-^, which assuredly has no-
thing vulgar init, and which seemsbut indifferently
descriptive of a scarab a few lines in length, and
* Geoffroi, Hist, abregce des Insectes des Environs de Paris,
tom. I. p. 72, plate V. fig. 3.
f Scarabaiis Tyfhaus, Lin. Syst. Nat.;—Fabridus, Spec. In-
sect, p. 10*
whose