COLEOPTEROUS INSECTS 1 93 



the sun. All the individuals of this scarabaeus are 

 of the male sex: when the insect wishes to pro- 

 duce others, it seeks for the dung of cattle, and 

 forms it into a ball the figure of the world ; this 

 it rolls with its hind feet, going backwards, and 

 in the direction from east to west, as the world is 

 so conveyed by its movements. The scarabaeus 

 buries this ball in the earth, where it remains con- 

 cealed for twenty-eight days, a period equal to a 

 lunar revolution, during which the young scarabaeus 

 becomes animated. On the 29th day, which the 

 insect knows to be that of the conjunction of the 

 moon with the sun, and of the birth of the world, 

 it opens the ball and throws it into the water. The 

 animals which then issue from it are the scarabaei. 

 It is for these reasons that the Egyptians, when 

 they wish to designate a being produced by itself, 

 or to express the idea of a birth, a father, the world, 

 &c. represent a scarabaeus. 



The thirty fingers mentioned in the above ac- 

 count are no doubt the joints of the feet or tarsi, 

 which being five to each of the six feet, amount ex- 

 actly to that number. The rays alluded to are re- 

 presented by the six teeth or angular projections of 

 the head, a character which is often expressed with 

 great accuracy on the Egyptian monuments and en- 

 graved stones. As the male of this species, con- 

 trary to what is observed in the generality of co- 

 prophagous beetles, scarcely differs in external ap- 

 pearance from the female, and appears to share with 



