BEETLES. 



At the liL'ad of the .Sc;ir.-ilKBi(.l;e stmids Atvi'chus (or tSciaxdKeus) sacer, the scara- 

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

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

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

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

 tral stria', and may have been made with Atetichxs laticoHls, an allied species, for a 

 model. The species of beetle which tlie Egyj>tians intended to rejiresent is known niH 

 only from their representations, but from specimens preserved witii mununies. Those 

 beetles dig out pieces of the excrement of various mammals, using their sliovel-forme<l 

 head for the work. With their legs they fVinu these masses of e.xci-ement into a ball, 

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

 begins the curious i)rocess of rolling this ball to a hole, a foot or more in deptli, 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 tibire, and, with 

 lowered head, moving backwards. Another beetle aids by ])ulling 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 jiarticles of earth, and acquires solidity and an almost perfectly 

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

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

 with earth, after which the ])arent insects go about repeating the process of making more 

 l)alls. As each ball is the nest for oidy one of their offspring, the industry with which 

 these beetles labor for the propagation of tlieir 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 V The egg hatches, 

 the lar\-a eats the food-sujijily so carefully stored away by its jiareiits, pupates, and the 

 ne.Yt season emerges as inuigo. 



All the subterranean metamoriihoses 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, tlii> 

 beetle was a symbol "of the world, as P. \'al- 

 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 angidar projections from 

 its head resembling I'ays, and the thirty joints 

 of the six tarsi of its feet answering to the days 

 of the mouth; and of a warrior, from the iilea 

 of manly courage being connected with its sup- 

 (josed birth from a male only. It was as syni- 

 Ijolical of this last that its image was worn 

 npon the signets of the Roman soldiers : and 

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

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

 women to render them prolific." 



The LtrcANiD.*; differ from the ScarabaMchu 

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

 antennal club are not capable of being l)rought compactly together. The ])ygidiuni 



Flc. 43G. — Lucanus titamts. 



