215 



' rolling with the next beetle it sees so engaged. Beetles of similar habits are 

 common in America, where they have earned the name of Tumble-bugs. They 

 increase so fast that they will clear away all the droppings upon the hard spaces 

 in their neighbourhood, and are thus a sort of volunteer scavengers, purifying both 

 earth and air. The material is the same as that which other kinds of beetles 

 store up in a different way for the use of their young. This is about all that I 

 have found which professes to be modern description. 



It is not surprising that a creature so interesting should occupy a prominent 

 place in both ancient and mediaeval thought. The older Egyptians held the 

 Scarabaeus sacred to Osiris, the Sun-god. In their view the spikes that stand out 

 from its head were rays. Its six legs had thirty joints amongst them — equal to 

 the number of days which the sun spends in each sign of the zodiac. The ball 

 was typical of the round earth, and was rolled always from east to west, the way 

 of the sun. After rolling it for twenty-eight days, the duration of tlie lunar 

 revolution, its owner buried it Perhaps the better opinion as to the ancient 

 belief is that the ball lay buried during the twenty-eight days. On the twenty- 

 ninth day the beetle took it up, broke it, and threw it into water, when, through 

 the union of heat and moisture, the young scaraboei were generated, and the 

 process was complete. The individuals of this sacred race were thought to be all 

 males, so that their young had to be generated in the dung during the interment. 

 This power of self-generation was an item of very grand importance in tlieir 

 reverence for the scarabseus. Figures of it, made in gold and all precious as well 

 as cheaper materials, were worn as amulets, and enclosed with the dead in tombs 

 where they are found in vast quantities. I understand they are now manu- 

 factured largely at Birmingham to supply the demand for Egyptian curios ! It 

 was even carved of gigantic size out of masses of granite. To the modern 

 Egyptians it is an emblem of fertility, and as such is believed to be efficacious 

 taken inwardly. 



In the earliest entomological work published in Britain, " Moufeti 

 Insectorum sive minimoruni Theatrum, London, 1U34,'' the virtues and uses of the 

 scarabaeus are displayed at great length. It is said to invite to modesty, temper- 

 ance, labour, magnanimity, justice, and prudence. While writing this paper, 1 

 have endeavoured to cultivate such of these most useful virtues as would aid me ; 

 and, having regard to its deficiencies, I can only hope that those who listen to it 

 are in possession of the rest. In order that we may study it, and, if necessary, 

 invoke its aid, our past President, Dr. T. A. Chapman, has brought a specimen of 

 Ateuchus sacer, together with two other allied species of similar habits, Cuvieri 

 and laticolUs. 



I do not bring this subject before the Club as one that has any distinct 

 bearing on the natural history of the county of Hereford, but rather with the 

 view of suggesting that entomology has received but scant attention from our 

 members. Perhaps a careful study of insects that are common here may yield 

 results approaching those obtainable from this scarabaeus with its mixed history 

 of fact and fable. We have good practical entomologists amongst us, in proof of 

 which I would instance Dr. Chapman's most interesting life history of the dung 



