An account of the Mυρμηκολέων or Ant-lion

G. C. Druce

doi:10.1017/S0003581500015031

An account of the Mυρμηκολέων or Ant-lion

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012

G. C. Druce

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The interesting but detestable creature, the subject of these notes, does not seem hitherto to have inspired any enthusiasm in the antiquarian breast, for I have been unable to find any paper relating to it in the journals of archaeological societies. There is, however, a popular account in Princess Mary's Gift-book for 1914, consisting of a translation by the late Teixeira de Mattos of J. H. Fabre's story of the ant-lion and its habits, with a coloured plate, both of which accurately reproduce its pernicious activities.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , October 1923 , pp. 347 - 364

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581500015031 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1923

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^{page 347 note 1} ‘De bestiis et aliis rebus,’ Lib. II, cap. 29. Text in Migne's, Patrologiae Cursus Completes, vol. clxxvii, col. 75Google Scholar.

^{page 348 note 1} Book XII, ch. 3. Text in Migne, vol. lxxxii, col. 441.

^{page 348 note 2} Book. VIII, ch. 2. Text in Migne, vol. cxi, col. 228.

^{page 348 note 3} Book V, ch. 20, sec. 40.

^{page 349 note 1} See translation in Pusey's, Library of the Fathers, vol. i, p. 270.Google Scholar A summary of the arguments used by Gregory is given by Petrus de Mora in his commentary on the passage in Job. It is included in the Clavis of St. Melito, ch. xlvii, under the heading of ‘tiger’. See Pitra, J. B., Spicilegium Solesmense, vol. iii, p. 62Google Scholar.

^{page 350 note 1} Book XVIII, ch. 52.

^{page 350 note 2} Book XVIII, ch. 10.

^{page 351 note 1} The two editions consulted are Cologne (? 1470) and Nuremberg, 1483.

^{page 351 note 2} invisum = infestum; in MS. 249 Merton Coll. the reading is minimum.

^{page 351 note 3} MS. Nero A v (B.M.); see also translation of this manuscript in Thos. Wright's, Popular Treatises on Science, 1846.Google Scholar Compare MS. 249 Merton Coll.; there are variations in the text, but the sense is the same.

^{page 351 note 4} MS. Vespasian A vii (B.M.); MSS. in Bibl. Nat. Paris, transcribed by Cahier, in Mélanges d'Archéologie, vol. ii, p. 195Google Scholar ; MS. Egerton 613 (B.M.), text in Reinsch's, Dr.Le Bestiaire, Leipzig, 1890; the differences in the texts are not importantGoogle Scholar.

^{page 352 note 1} MS. 3516, Arsenal Library, Paris.

^{page 352 note 2} Ein tosco-venezianischer Bestiarius, 1892.

^{page 352 note 3} Matt. v. 37; Jas. v. 12; 2 Cor. i. 17–19.

^{page 352 note 4} Der Bilderkreis des griechischen Physiologus, Leipzig, 1899Google Scholar.

^{page 353 note 1} Physiologus Syrus, ch. xii, Rostoch, 1795.

^{page 353 note 2} See translation by Leo Allatius, Leiden, 1629. Allatius attributes this commentary to Eustathius upon very slender evidence.

^{page 353 note 3} Bat, Cod. Lugd.. 66, Anecdota Syriaca, vol. iv, p. 31Google Scholar.

^{page 353 note 4} Spicilegium Solesmense, vol. iii, p. 385Google Scholar.

^{page 353 note 5} Nouveaux Mélanges d'Archéologie, vol. i, p. 130Google Scholar.

^{page 354 note 1} Die Aethiopische Uebersetzung des Physiologus, Leipzig, 1877Google Scholar.

^{page 354 note 2} Book III, 102–5.

^{page 355 note 1} Book XV, ch. I, 44.

^{page 355 note 2} Book XI, 37 (31).

^{page 355 note 3} Book III, ch. 4.

^{page 355 note 4} Book VII, ch. 47.

^{page 355 note 5} lndika, ch. 15.

^{page 355 note 6} See Müller's, Geographi Graeci Minores., vol. i, p. 158Google Scholar.

^{page 356 note 1} Book XVI, chs. 4 and 15.

^{page 356 note 2} Book XVII, ch. 42.

^{page 356 note 3} Polyhistor, ch. xxxiii.

^{page 356 note 4} Oratio 35.

^{page 356 note 5} For translations and notes, see J. W. McCrindle, Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian.

^{page 356 note 6} See Zacker, Julius, Pseudocallisthenes, p. 135Google Scholar.

^{page 357 note 1} See Cockayne's, T. O.Narratiunculae Anglice Conscriptae, 1861, p. 63, for textsGoogle Scholar.

^{page 358 note 1} Scrinta et clitellas.

^{page 358 note 2} In MS. Gg-6-5, the fifteenth-century Bestiary at Cambridge, the animals employed are camels. The story also appears in Sir John Maundevile's Travels. The scene is laid in Ceylon and the ants are called ‘pismyres’. ‘In the yle is a great hyll of golde that pismyres kepe, & they do fine golde from the other that is not fine golde and the pismyres are as great as houndes, so that no man dare come there for dread of pismyres that should assayle them so that men may not worke in that gold nor get thereof but by subtiltie, and therefore whan it is righte hote the pismyres hide them in the earth from undern to none of the daye, and than men of the countrey take cameles and dormedaries & other beastes & go thether and charge them with gold and go away fast or the pismyres come out of the earth. And other times whan it is not so hot and the pismyres hide them not, they take mares that have foles, & they lay upon these mares two long vessels as it were two smale barels and the mouth upwards and drive them thether and holde their foles at home, and whan the pismyres se these vessels they springe therein, for they have of kinde to leve no hole nor pyt open, and anone they fyl these vessels with golde, and whan men think that the vessels be full, they take the foles and bringe them as nere as they dare, and then they whine, and the mares heare them, and anon they come to their foles, and so they take the gold, for these pismires will suffer beastes for to go among them but no men.’ The Voiage and trauaile of Syr John Maundevile, Knight, London, 1568.

^{page 359 note 1} MS. Nero A v, ‘del gran deceu’ = ‘de la grandeur de chien’.

^{page 359 note 2} MSS. Egerton 613, Vespasian A vii, and other manuscripts have been consulted.

^{page 362 note 1} De Animalibus, Book XXVI, Tract. I, ch. 20.

^{page 362 note 2} Hierozoicon, Book VI, ch. 4.

^{page 362 note 3} Speculum Doctrinale, Book XVI, ch. 117.

^{page 363 note 1} A good illustration of an adult fly may be seen in The Living Animals of the World, vol. ii, p. 700Google Scholar.

^{page 363 note 2} Vol. lii, p. 101.

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