a Syrian mimic poet, who flourished about 44 years before Christ. He was originally a slave sold to a Roman patrician, called Domitius, who brought him up with great attention, and gave him his freedom when of age. He gained the esteem of the most powerful men at Rome, and reckoned Julius Caesar among his patrons. He soon eclipsed the poet Laberius, whose burlesque compositions were in general esteem. There remains of Pablius a collection of moral sentences, written in iambics, and placed in alphabetical order.

OAK PUCCERON, a name given by naturalists to a very remarkable species of animal of the puceron kind. They bury themselves in the clefts of the oak and some other trees, and getting into the crevices, where the bark is a little separated from the wood, they there live at ease, and feed to their fill, without being exposed to their common enemies. They are larger than the other pucerons, the winged ones being nearly as large as a common house fly; and those without wings are also larger than any other species of the same genus. The winged ones are black, and the others of a coffee colour. Their trunk is twice the length of their bodies, and, when walking, it is carried straight along the belly, trailing behind it with the point up. When the creature has a mind to fuck a part of the tree that is just before it, it draws up and shortens the trunk, till it brings it to a proper length and direction; but when it fucks in the common way, it crawls upon the inner surface of the bark, and the turned up end of the trunk, which resembles a tail, fixes itself against the wood that is behind it, or contiguous to its back, and fucks there. The extremity of this trunk holds so fast by the wood, that when it is pulled away, it frequently brings a small piece of the wood away with it.

The ants are as fond of these as of the other species of pucerons, and that for the same reason, not feeding upon them, but on their dung, which is a liquid matter of a sweet taste, and is the natural juice of the tree, very little altered. These creatures are the surest guides where to find this species of puceron; for if we at any time see a number of these crawling up an oak to a certain part, and there creeping into the clefts of the bark, we may be assured that in that place there are quantities of these oak pucerons. The ants are so extremely fond of the juices of the tree, when prepared for them by passing through the body of this animal; that when the puceron has a drop not yet evacuated, but hanging only in part out at the passage, an ant will often seize on it there.