26 OUR HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 



But the most repulsive charge against them is that of 

 anthropophagy. Some years ago, some Egyptian mum- 

 mies were discovered, which, perhaps through straitened 

 circumstances in the family to which they belonged, 

 or through the shiftiness of some dishonest firm of 

 embalmers, had evidently been prepared with less care 

 than was usually expended on such objects. On being 

 unswathed, the bodies were found to be pierced in some 

 places by an insect identical with the London warehouse 

 pest above referred to, viz., D. vulpinus, some examples 

 of which had worked their way through two or three 

 folds of the mummy-cloth and there perished. The 

 bodies, on being opened, were found to contain thou- 

 sands of the larvae, together with many more of the 

 perfect beetles of course, all mummified and saved from 

 decay by the same drugs as had preserved the mummy 

 itself. From the facts that death had overtaken the 

 larvae in the fulness of their powers, that only a few 

 beetles had escaped from the body, and that these had 

 not been able to work their way out completely, it is 

 manifest that they must have commenced their attacks 

 during the preliminary processes of embalmment, when 

 evidently the body had been somewhat neglected, and 

 that most of them had been killed by the later stages of 

 the operation, a few only surviving its completion, and 

 they were without strength sufficient to eat their way 

 completely through the investing mass into daylight. 



The Dermestes were accompanied by another beetle, a 

 bright blue species called Corynetes violaceus, which also 

 is a common British insect, and a devourer of carrion 

 and skins, though belonging to a different family. It 

 was well for the feelings of the survivors and owners of 

 the precious relics that all these insects perished where 

 and when they did ; for think what a shock it would 



