180 
The Rev. F. W. Hope on Blatta. 
and the remarks which follow are the results of my investigations, 
which I now bring before the Society. 
In conformity with the above extract, I have to add that Dr. 
Geddes gives an interpretation of the w r ord Oreb as signifying “ a 
swarm of beetles;” and in Dr. Harris’s Natural History of the 
Bible T find a note appended to Geddes’s opinion, which gives us 
even the name of the species, viz. the Blatta JEgyptiaca of Lin- 
naeus, and it appears that this rendering is supported by Oedman, 
Michaelis (Orient. Bibl. Nov. pp. 5, 38), and Rosenmuller, and 
it is added, “ This is a very voracious insect, that not only bites 
animals, but devours tender herbs and fruits.” Any entomologist 
must be aware that the above remark applies equally well to va- 
rious flies, which feed alike on plants and animals. Had Geddes 
been a naturalist, he would probably have stated what swarms of 
beetles attack men and animals. I cannot help thinking that those 
authors w’ho have adopted his opinion have been obliged to refer 
to the cockroach, as the only insect at all like a beetle which seems 
to favour their theories. 
But let us proceed to inquire more minutely into this opinion. 
What are the species of beetle which swarm ? if that term indeed 
may be used. It is singular that the word beetle, in our transla- 
tion of the Bible, occurs only in Leviticus (xi. v. 22), “ Of these 
ye may eat, the locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind.” 
I have little hesitation in saying that the context in the above pas- 
sage leads me to think that the Hebrew word Chargol signifies 
a locust, and not a fly. On referring to Dr. Harris’s Dictionary 
of the Bible, under the word Beetle, there is the following sin- 
gular note : “ The Egyptians paid a superstitious worship to the 
beetle Blatta JEgyptiaca , Linn.” The Egyptians certainly never 
did so. Mr. Molyneux, however, in the Philosophical Transac- 
tions, (No. 234, Lawthrop’s Abridgement, vol. ii. p. 779), says, 
“ It is more than probable that this destructive beetle we are 
speaking of was that very kind of Scarabceus which the idolatrous 
Egyptians of old held in such high veneration.” Now on turning 
to Mr. Molyneux’s paper, you may judge of my surprise when I 
discovered that the beetle referred to was Melolontha vulgaris, the 
common European cockchafer, which abounded in Ireland in the 
year 1688. But as the Sacred Beetle of the Egyptians was either 
an Ateuchus or a Copris, it is only necessary to mention the errors 
which are here but too apparent, first, that Blatta w 7 as a beetle ; 
and secondly, that the beetle, the object of the Egyptian worship, 
was destructive, which it is notorious w r as regarded as the emblem 
of fertility, fecundity, and generation, and certainly, as far as I 
