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XXITl, Account of a neiu Species of Insect of the Genus Co- 

 rynctes of Fabricius, observed in an Egyptian Mummy at 

 Grenoble. By M. Champojllion Fxgeac*. 



J. HE circumstances attending the discovery of this insect, hi- 

 therto unknown, are equally singular as the result is in itself in- 

 teresting ; no person, in fact, would expect to find a new species 

 of insect in an Egyptian mummy. 



Tlie curiosities of this description, which various public and 

 private cabinets of Europe contain, have been examined by many. 

 Blumenbach and several other naturalists have studied 'the va- 

 rious kinds of embalming which they present, and have in- 

 quired into the process itself, combining their remarks with 

 what Herodotus and Diodorus have written on the subject. 

 Considered in an anthropological point of view, the mummies 

 prepared by the Egyptians have served to prove that there ex- 

 isted certain differences of form or proportion between the in- 

 dividuals embalmed ; i. e. the people of Egvpt or the adjoining 

 countries, and the inhabitants of Europe. Antiquaries, seeking 

 only for traces of the arts among the ancients, have described 

 the paintings which adorn the envelopes of the mummies, and 

 their sycamore coffins. Finally, the discovery of several Egyptian 

 manuscripts, hieroglyphical and alphabetical, inclosed in the 

 wrappings of the mummies, having excited the curiosity of the 

 learned, they have endeavoured, as well as they could without 

 destroying the mummy, to search minutely all those which have 

 reached Europe. 



Sirnilar motives induced me to study those which belong to 

 the Cabmet of Antiquities of the Public Library of Grenoble. 



One of them, remarkable for the richness of its ornaments' is 

 still more so from the kind of embalment v/hich it has received, 

 and which, consisting merely of an injection into the vessels of 

 a preservative liquid, has left every limb its natural form and 

 flexibility. This was the mummy which 1 examined in the sum- 

 mer of the year 1810, aided by M. ChampolHon jun. 



The instant it was removed from its case or coffin, and placed 

 on a convenient table, we perceived that it had been vi- 

 «ited before by means of an aperture made in the lower part 

 of the dorsal spine, an aperture which occasioned the loss of 

 eeveral vertebrse and some of the ribs. We know, in fact, that 

 the Arabs, in order to search for gold and talismans, carefully 

 mspected all the mummies which they discovered, before selling 

 them to be sent to Europe for the " uses of pharmacy, or for 

 the cabiuets of the curious. The mummy in question seems to 



* Ma^asln Enn/chpidigue for May 1814. 



* 2 have 



