SCARAB^ID^ — DUNG-BEETLES. 43 



a very long time without any visible sustenance, and there- 

 fore made it a symbol of the Deity ?"^ 



ore 



1 Phil. Trans. Ahridg., ix. 11. Concerning the worship of animals 

 in general by the Egyptians, the following remarks in a note may not 

 be inappropriate, as they embrace the worship of the Scarabajus. 



1. A class of animals, to which may be referred the cow, dog, 

 sheep, and ibis, were at first naturally protected and respected out 

 of gratitude for the benefits derived from them. But in time, it is 

 supposed, this respect, by unthoughtful descendants believing too 

 implicitly the teachings of their fathers, was gradually enlarged to 

 so great extent that it became reverence, and at last, perhaps after 

 centuries, worship. For example, at A time, the ibis is respected 

 on account of its destroying noxious serpents; at B, reverenced; 

 and at C, worshiped 



2. When at C time, the ibis is worshiped, suppose the masses have 

 lost the reason (which in the case of the Egyptians is an allowable 

 supposition, since it is an historical fact that but the initiated knew 

 tlie reasons for their manner of worship), and serpents are its food, is 

 it plain then that if the food be taken away the sacred bird cannot 

 live? Hence at Ctime are serpents preserved and protected as food 

 for the ibis; and as this protecting care increases as above, till at D 

 they are reverenced, and at E worshiped. To this second class may 

 be referred the crocodile, which was preserved, etc. as food for the 

 ichneumon, a sacred animal of the first class. 



3. Analogies between animals, and even plants, and certain sources 

 of goodness, or objects of wonder, as the sun, and motion of the 

 stars, were at A time, noticed; at B, respected or reverenced; and 

 atC, worshiped. Thus, among plants, became the onion sacred, from 

 the resemblance of the laminae which compose it, in a transverse 

 section, to circles — to the orbits of the planets. And thus the Scara- 

 baeus from the analogies between its movements and shape and the 

 motions of the sun, traced, as we have before remarked on the au- 

 thority of several ancient writers, became also an object of adora- 

 tion. 



4. A fourth reason may also be given, which follows as a conse- 

 quence of the latter. If such analogy, as. for example, that between 

 the beetle and the sun, had been observed in the time of picture and 

 hieroglyphic writing, to represent the sun, the beetle would have 

 been taken. Now, it is a well-authenticated fact, that these hiero- 

 glyphics in time became sacred, and, if the beetle was found among 

 them, it for this, if for no other reason, would have been looked upon 

 with the same veneration. 



5. Good men, too, to preserve the lives of animals oftentimes wan- 

 tonly taken, introduce them into fables and poetry, and connect 

 pleasing tales with them. The "Babes in the Wood" have so fixed 

 the respect for the tameness of the robin, that it is even now deemed 

 a sacrilege with our boys to stone this bird. And may there not 

 have been such good men, and such tender stories, among the Egyp- 

 tians, and the remembrance of whom and which long lost by the 

 lapse of time? 



