If these were Longicorn affairs, the scandal would not be far-reaching; but, alas, we also have our domestic quarrels! The Beetle explains his by his nocturnal habits: the light makes for milder manners; the darkness tends to deprave them. The result is worse when the soul is in darkness; and the lout who thrashes his wife is a child of the gloom. CHAPTER IX THE PINE COCKCHAFER In writing Pine Cockchafer at the head of this chapter, I am guilty of a deliberate heresy: the insect’s orthodox name is Fuller Cockchafer (Melolontha fullo, Lin.). We must not be fastidious, I know, in matters of nomenclature. Make a noise of some sort, give it a Latin termination and you will have, as far as euphony goes, the equivalent of many of the labels pasted in the entomologist’s specimen-boxes. The cacophony would be excusable if the barbarous expression signified nothing else than the creature intended; but, generally speaking, this name possesses, hidden among its Greek or other roots, a certain meaning in which the novice hopes to find a little information. He will be woefully disappointed. The scientific term refers to subtleties difficult to grasp and of very slight importance. Too often it leads him astray, suggesting views which have naught in common with the truth as we know it from observation. Sometimes the errors are flagrant; sometimes the allusions are grotesque and imbecile. Provided that they have a decent sound, how greatly preferable are locutions in which entomology finds nothing to dissect! Fullo would be one of these, if the word had not a first sense which at once occurs to the mind. This Latin expression means a “fuller,” one who “fulls” cloth under running water, dressing it and ridding it of the stiffness of the weaving. What connection has the Cockchafer who forms the subject of this chapter with the working fuller? You may rack your brains in vain: no acceptable answer will come. The term fullo, applied to an insect, occurs in Pliny. In one chapter the great naturalist treats of remedies for jaundice, fevers and dropsy. A little of everything plays its part in this pharmacopœia: a black Dog’s longest tooth; a Mouse’s nose wrapped in a pink rag; a green Lizard’s right eye torn from the living reptile and placed in a kid-skin bag; a Snake’s heart, torn out with the left hand; the four joints of a Scorpion’s tail, including the sting, wrapped up in a black cloth, provided that for three days the patient can see neither the remedy nor him that applied it; and many other extravagances. We close the book, alarmed by the slough of absurdities whence the art of healing has come down to us. In this medley of inanities, the forerunner of medicine, the fuller makes his appearance. The text says: “Tertium qui vocatur fullo, albis guttis, dissectum utrique lacerto adalligant.”