The Sacred Beetle and Others 



would certainly have used him for their 

 hieratical images. He is quite as good as 

 the Sacred Beetle and even better from 

 the point of view of those oddities which 

 offer such scope to sacerdotal symbolism. 

 On the front edge of the corselet, a single 

 horn rises, as powerful as the two others and 

 shaped Hke a cylinder ending in a conical 

 knob. It points forward and is fixed in the 

 middle of the frontal crescent, projecting a 

 little beyond it. The arrangement is glori- 

 ously original. The carvers of hiero- 

 glyphics would have beheld in it the crescent 

 of Isis wherein dips the edge of the world. 

 Some other peculiarities complete the 

 nymph's curious appearance. To right and 

 left, the abdomen is armed, on either side, 

 with four little horns resembling crystal 

 spikes. Total, eleven pieces in the crea- 

 ture's harness: two on the forehead; one on 

 the thorax; eight on the abdomen. The 

 beast of yore delighted in queer horns : cert- 

 ain reptiles of the geological period stuck a 

 pointed spur on their upper eyelids. The 

 Onthophagus, more greatly daring, sports 

 eight on the sides of his belly, in addition 

 to the spear which he plants upon his back. 

 The frontal horns may be excused: they are 

 fairly common; but what does he propose to 

 408 



