BEETLES. 



375 



At the head of the Scarabseidse stands Ateuchus (or Scaraboeus) sacer, the scara- 

 bceus of the ancients, of which figures are found carved in stone on the monuments of 

 ancient Egypt, and which is often termed the sacred beetle of the Egyptians. It is a 

 somewhat flattened, dull-black beetle, a little over an inch in length. Its elytra are 

 scarcely striate, although some of the beetles carved by the early Egyptians had ely- 

 tral striae, and may have been made with Ateuchus laticottis, an allied species, for a 

 model. The species of beetle which the Egyptians intended to represent is known not 

 only from their representations, but from specimens preserved with mummies. These 

 beetles dig out pieces of the excrement of various mammals, using their shovel-formed 

 head for the work. With their legs they form these masses of excrement into a ball, 

 which they gradually increase in size until it is nearly two inches in diameter. Now 

 begins the curious process of rolling this ball to a hole, a foot or more in depth, which 

 has been made for its reception. One of the beetles pushes the ball from behind, seiz- 

 ing it in his hind legs, which are fitted for the purpose by their curved tibias, and, with 

 lowered head, moving backwards. Another beetle aids by pulling at the opposite side 

 of the ball, using the fore-legs as hands. Thus rolled along, the ball, at first plastic and 

 irregular, is covered with particles of earth, and acquires solidity and an almost perfectly 

 spherical form. This ball, which contains a single egg and excrement just sufficient to 

 feed the larva during its growth, is put into the hole in the ground, and the hole filled 

 with earth, after which the parent insects go about repeating the process of making more 

 balls. As each ball is the nest for only one of their offspring, the industry with which 

 these beetles labor for the propagation of their kind is remarkable. They are not rare 

 near the coast around the whole Mediterranean, and their value as scavengers is con- 

 siderable. But what happens within the balls which they bury? The egg hatches, 

 the larva eats the food-supply so carefully stored away by its parents, pupates, and the 

 next season emerges as imago. 



All the subterranean metamorphoses of these sacred beetles remained unknown to 

 the Egyptians, who considered them as generated by males alone, for they supposed 

 that all these beetles were males. With the 

 Egyptians, as Kirby and Spence write, this 

 beetle was a symbol " of the world, as P. Val- 

 erianus supposes, on account of the orbicular 

 form of its pellets of dung, and the notion of 

 their being rolled from sunrise to sunset ; of the 

 sun, because of the angular projections from 

 its head resembling rays, and the thirty joints 

 of the six tarsi of its feet answering to the days 

 of the month ; and of a warrior, from the idea 

 of manly courage being connected with its sup- 

 posed birth from a male only. It was as sym- 

 bolical of this last that its ima^e was worn 



~ 



upon the signets of the Roman soldiers : and 

 as typical of the sun, the source of fertility, it 

 is yet, as Dr. Clarke informs us, eaten by the 

 women to render them prolific." 



The LucANiDyE differ from the Scaraboeidre 

 but little in structure. They are lamellicorn Coleoptera, in which the lamella? of the 

 antennal club are not capable of being brought compactly together. The pygiditun 



FIG. 436. Lncanus titanus. 



