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This paper elicited the following observations from Mr. J. Hutchinson, 

 London, June 27th, 1888, in a letter to the Hereford Times of June 30th, which 

 shews that my new friend is even more important than I had thought : — 



"A ROMANCE OF BEETLE LIFE." 

 May I be permitted to point out that it is not quite correct to say, as Mr. 

 Blashill does in his paper on Beetle Life, that " the earliest entomological work 

 published in Britain" was Thomas Muffet's "Theatrum Insectorum ?" I am 

 aware that James Duncan (following, perhaps, Swainson) in his volume on 

 "Beetles" in the "Naturalist's Library" (from which popular work Mr. 

 Blashill seems to have derived this and most of his information), says so. But he 

 was mistaken. Not to mention works like Bacon's Natural History, in which the 

 subject of Insects is treated incidentally, I have before me a treatise entitled 

 " Sierogliiphica Inscclorum .... quw in Scripturis saeris inveniutur,'' etc., 

 by Archibald Simson, printed in Edinburgh in 1624 (ten years before Muffet's 

 work was published), in which most of the Insects mentioned by Muffet are 

 treated of, though from a somewhat different point of view. Amongst others 

 there is a chapter devoted to the " Scarabeus," containing the principal references 

 to this sacred insect in the writings of the Fathers. These writings confirm the 

 statements of the ancient naturalists concerning it, respecting its appearance, 

 mode of propagating its species, etc., etc., and add also some curious particulars. 

 For instance, Clemens Alexandrinus tells us that if the insect be anointed with 

 ointment of roses it will die ; and in like manner the wicked, being anointed with 

 the oil of the Word of God, are destroyed, it being the "savour of death unto 

 death " (unto them). Nam fatidum animal (he continues) e.c stercorc nascens, 

 sunves verhi divini odores ferre non potest. The same writer fiKlher relates that, 

 after Capua, a shield was proposed for Hannibal on which was a Scarabeus 

 surrounded by Koses, to signify the effeminating of that warlike commander by 

 the pleasures of that town. But the most remarkable reference to the insect is 

 by St. Augustine, who calls Christ his Scarabeus— " ille Scarabeus meus " — not 

 (he explains) because he was " unigenitus," or that, being the Author of His own 

 Being, He put on the form of mortality, but that in this our corruption He 

 became involved, and from it by His own will became man. [Quod in hdc fmce 

 nostra se volutaril, et ex ipsa nasci homn volueril]. No translation can quite 

 gi\e the force of the original. 



