Note 3 — Chapter VIII · THE ERGATES; THE COSSUS

One indispensable condition must be fulfilled to earn the celebrated name: the grub must be plump, of a good size and not too repulsive in appearance. Now by a curious freak of scientific nomenclature it happens that the name of Cossus has been allotted to the mighty caterpillar3 whose galleries honeycomb old willows: a hideous, malodorous creature, the colour of wine-lees. No gullet, not even a Roman’s, would have dared to swallow anything so loathsome. The Cossus of the modern naturalists is certainly not that of the epicures of old.