The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6)

BOOK XI.. The Various Kinds of Insects.

THE VARIOUS KINDS OF INSECTS.

CHAP. Page

1. The extreme smallness of insects 1

2. Whether insects respire, and whether they have blood 3

3. The bodies of insects 4

4. Bees 5

5. The order displayed in the works of bees ib.

6. The meaning of the terms commosis, pissoceros, and propolis 6

7. The meaning of erithace, sandaraca, or cerinthos 7

8. What flowers are used by the bees in their work ib.

9. Persons who have made bees their study 8

10. The mode in which bees work ib.

11. Drones 10

12. The qualities of honey 11

13. Where the best honey is produced 12

14. The kinds of honey peculiar to various places ib.

15. How honey is tested. Ericæum. Tetralix, or sisirum 14

16. The reproduction of bees 16

17. The mode of government of the bees 18

18. Happy omens sometimes afforded by a swarm of bees 19

19. The various kinds of bees 20

20. The diseases of bees 21

21. Things that are noxious to bees 22

22. How to keep bees to the hive 23

23. Methods of renewing the swarm ib.

24. Wasps and hornets: animals which appropriate what belongs to others 24

25. The bombyx of Assyria 25

26. The larvæ of the silk-worm—who first invented silk cloths ib.

27. The silk-worm of Cos—how the Coan vestments are made 26

28. Spiders; the kinds that make webs; the materials used by them in so doing 27

29. The generation of spiders 29

30. Scorpions ib.

31. The stellio 31

32. The grasshopper: that it has neither mouth nor outlet for food ib.

33. The wings of insects 33

34. The beetle. The glow-worm. Other kinds of beetles 33

35. Locusts 35

36. Ants 37

37. The chrysalis 39

38. Animals which breed in wood 40

39. Insects that are parasites of man. Which is the smallest of animals? Animals found in wax even ib.

40. An animal which has no passage for the evacuations ib.

41. Moths, cantharides, gnats—an insect which breeds in the snow 41

42. An animal found in fire—the pyrallis, or pyrausta 42

43. The animal called hemerobion ib.

44. The nature and characteristics of all animals considered limb by limb. Those which have tufts and crests 43

45. The various kinds of horns. Animals in which they are moveable 44

46. The heads of animals. Those which have none 46

47. The hair ib.

48. The bones of the head 47

49. The brain ib.

50. The ears. Animals which hear without ears or apertures 48

51. The face, the forehead, and the eye-brows 49

52. The eyes—animals which have no eyes, or have only one eye ib.

53. The diversity of the colour of the eyes 50

54. The theory of sight—persons who can see by night ib.

55. The nature of the pupil—eyes which do not shut 52

56. The hair of the eye-lids; what animals are without them. Animals which can see on one side only 54

57. Animals which have no eye-lids 55

58. The cheeks ib.

59. The nostrils ib.

60. The mouth; the lips; the chin; and the jaw-bone 56

61. The teeth; the various kinds of teeth; in what animals they are not on both sides of the mouth: animals which have hollow teeth ib.

62. The teeth of serpents; their poison. A bird which has teeth 57

63. Wonderful circumstances connected with the teeth 59

64. How an estimate is formed of the age of animals from their teeth 60

65. The tongue; animals which have no tongue. The noise made by frogs. The palate 61

66. The tonsils; the uvula; the epiglossis; the tracheal artery; the gullet 62

67. The neck; the throat; the dorsal spine 63

68. The throat; the gullet; the stomach 64

69. The heart; the blood; the vital spirit ib.

70. Those animals which have the largest heart, and those which have the smallest. What animals have two hearts 65

71. When the custom was first adopted of examining the heart in the inspection of the entrails 66

72. The lungs: in what animals they are the largest, and in what the smallest. Animals which have nothing but lungs in the interior of the body. Causes which produce extraordinary swiftness in animals 67

73. The liver; in what animals, and in what part there are two livers found ib.

74. The gall; where situate, and in what animals it is double. Animals which have no gall, and others in which it is not situate in the liver 68

75. The properties of the gall 69

76. In what animals the liver increases and decreases with the moon. Observations on the aruspices relative thereto, and remarkable prodigies 70

77. The diaphragm. The nature of laughter ib.

78. The belly: animals which have no belly. Which are the only animals that vomit 71

79. The small guts, the front intestines, the anus, the colon. The causes of the insatiate voracity of certain animals ib.

80. The omentum: the spleen; animals which are without it 73

81. The kidneys: animals which have four kidneys. Animals which have none ib.

82. The breast: the ribs 74

83. The bladder: animals which have no bladder ib.

84. The womb: the womb of the sow: the teats 75

85. Animals which have suet: animals which do not grow fat ib.

86. The marrow: animals which have no marrow 76

87. Bones and fish-bones: animals which have neither. Cartilages 77

88. The nerves: animals which have none ib.

89. The arteries; the veins: animals without arteries or veins. The blood and the sweat 78

90. Animals, the blood of which coagulates with the greatest rapidity: other animals, the blood of which does not coagulate. Animals which have the thickest blood: those the blood of which is the thinnest: animals which have no blood ib.

91. Animals which are without blood at certain periods of the year 79

92. Whether the blood is the principle of life 80

93. The hide of animals ib.

94. The hair and the covering of the skin 81

95. The paps: birds which have paps. Remarkable facts connected with the dugs of animals 82

96. The milk: the biestings. Cheese: of what milk cheese cannot be made. Rennet; the various kinds of aliment in milk 83

97. Various kinds of cheese 85

98. Differences of the members of man from those of other animals 86

99. The fingers, the arms ib.

100. Resemblance of the ape to man ib.

101. The nails 87

102. The knees and the hams ib.

103. Parts of the human body to which certain religious ideas are attached 88

104. Varicose veins 88

105. The gait, the feet, the legs 89

106. Hoofs ib.

107. The feet of birds 90

108. The feet of animals, from those having two feet to those with a hundred.—Dwarfs 91

109. The sexual parts.—Hermaphrodites ib.

110. The testes.—The three classes of eunuchs 92

111. The tails of animals ib.

112. The different voices of animals 93

113. Superfluous limbs 95

114. Signs of vitality and of the moral disposition of man, from the limbs 96

115. Respiration and nutriment 97

116. Animals which when fed upon poison do not die, and the flesh of which is poisonous 98

117. Reasons for indigestion. Remedies for crudity ib.

118. From what causes corpulence arises; how it may be reduced ib.

119. What things, by merely tasting of them, allay hunger and thirst 99

BOOK XII.. The Natural History of Trees.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF TREES.

1. The honourable place occupied by trees in the system of nature 101

2. The early history of trees 102

3. Exotic trees. When the plane-tree first appeared in Italy, and whence it came 103

4. The nature of the plane-tree 104

5. Remarkable facts connected with the plane-tree ib.

6. The chamæplatanus. Who was the first to clip green shrubs 106

7. How the citron is planted ib.

8. The trees of India 107

9. When ebony was first seen at Rome. The various kinds of ebony 109

10. The Indian thorn ib.

11. The Indian fig ib.

12. The pala: the fruit called ariena 110

13. Indian trees, the names of which are unknown. Indian trees which bear flax 111

14. The pepper-tree.—The various kinds of pepper—bregma—zingiberi, or zimpirebi ib.

15. Caryophyllon, lycion, and the Chironian pyxacanthus 113

16. Macir 114

17. Sugar ib.

18. Trees of Ariana, Gedrosia, and Hyrcania 115

19. Trees of Bactriana, bdellium, or brochon, otherwise malacha, or maldacon, scordastum. Adulterations used in all spices and aromatics; the various tests of them and their respective values ib.

20. Trees of Persis 117

21. Trees of the islands of the Persian Sea. The cotton tree ib.

22. The tree called cyna. Trees from which fabrics for clothing are made in the east 118

23. A country where the trees never lose their leaves ib.

24. The various useful products of trees 119

Continue reading The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6) free in the Wunder reader →