The term fullo as applied to an insect is found in Pliny.  In one chapter the great naturalist treats of remedies against jaundice, fevers, and dropsy.  A little of everything enters into this antique pharmacy:  the longest tooth of a black dog; the nose of a mouse wrapped in a pink cloth; the right eye of a green lizard torn from the living animal and placed in a bag of kid-skin; the heart of a serpent, cut out with the left hand; the four articulations of the tail of a scorpion, including the dart, wrapped tightly in a black cloth, so that for three days the sick man can see neither the remedy nor him that applies it; and a number of other extravagances.  We may well close the book, alarmed at the slough of the imbecility whence the art of healing has come down to us.

In the midst of these imbecilities, the preludes of medicine, we find a mention of the “fuller.” Tertium qui vocatur fullo, albis guttis, dissectum utrique lacerto adalligant, says the text.  To treat fevers divide the fuller beetle in two parts and apply half under the right arm and half under the left.

[Illustration:  THE PINE-CHAFER.

(Melolontha fullo.)]

Now what did the ancient naturalist mean by the term “fuller beetle”?  We do not precisely know.  The qualification albis guttis, white spots, would fit the Pine-chafer well enough, but it is not sufficient to make us certain.  Pliny himself does not seem to have been very certain of the identity of the remedy.  In his time men’s eyes had not yet learned to see the insect world.  Insects were too small; they were well enough for amusing children, who would tie them to the end of a long thread and make them walk in circles, but they were not worthy of occupying the attention of a self-respecting man.

Pliny apparently derived the word from the country-folk, always poor observers and inclined to extravagant denominations.  The scholar accepted the rural locution, the work perhaps of the imagination of childhood, and applied it at hazard without informing himself more particularly.  The word came down to us embalmed with age; our modern naturalists have accepted it, and thus one of our handsomest insects has become the “fuller.”  The majesty of antiquity has consecrated the strange appellation.

In spite of all my respect for the antique, I cannot myself accept the term “fuller,” because under the circumstances it is absurd.  Common sense should be considered before the aberrations of nomenclature.  Why not call our subject the Pine-chafer, in reference to the beloved tree, the paradise of the insect during the two or three weeks of its aerial life?  Nothing could be simpler, or more appropriate, to give the better reason last.

We have to wander for ages in the night of absurdity before we reach the radiant light of the truth.  All our sciences witness to this fact; even the science of numbers.  Try to add a column of Roman figures; you will abandon the task, stupefied by the confusion of symbols; and will recognise what a revolution was made in arithmetic by the discovery of the zero.  Like the egg of Columbus, it was a very little thing, but it had to be thought of.