7-20 



HELIOCANTHARUS. 



into rays, the lateral margins of the elytra entire, the 

 anterior tarsi obsolete, and the four posterior legs 

 long and ciliated, &c. These insects are nearly allied 

 both in structure and habits, to the genus Gymno- 

 pleurun (which see), depositing their eggs in balls o 

 dung, which they roll into holes prepared for their 

 reception under ground. Mr. MacLeay has de- 

 scribed fifteen species of this group in the Horae 

 Entomologies. 



Perhaps there are no insects which have attracted 

 BO much celebrity as those now under consideration, 

 and which were, amongst the many objects "qualia 

 demens ./Egyptus coluit," under the name of the 

 beetles of the sun. Amongst the Egyptians, and 

 other nations in friendly intercourse with them, these 

 insects were objects of especial regard ; and when we 

 remember the singular character of the Egyptian 

 speculations, and the great interest which attaches to 

 the hieroglyphical discoveries of the present day, we 

 are induced to inquire into the causes which could 

 have led this celebrated people to attach so much 

 importance to a comparatively insignificant creature 

 like the heliocantharus. 



Apollonius, in his work upon the symbolical wis- 

 dom of the ancients, has entered largely into this 

 subject, describing three species of scaraba3tis ; the 

 first or the real searabreus, or beetle of the sun pre- 

 sented several rays from the head, whence it was con- 

 secrated to the deity of the sun ; and it was supposed 

 that all the individuals of this beetle were of the male 

 sex, and when one of them felt an inclination to con- 

 tinue its species, it sought out the dung of a cow, of 

 which it composed a ball representing the globe. 

 This ball it propels backwards with its hind legs, the 

 insect looking at the same time in the opposite direc- 

 tion ; and hence they come to be regarded as emblems 

 of the sun, which appears to proceed through the 

 heavens in a course contrary to that of the signs of 

 the zodiac ; and as these scarabaei were supposed to 

 roll their balls in the direction towards the west, their 

 own motion or at least their heads being directed to- 

 wards the east, it was further supposed that the first 

 of these motions was a symbolical exhibition of the 

 diurnal, the second of the annual, motion of the earth 

 and planets. Moreover, these male scarabaei were 

 supposed to roll their balls from sunrise to sunset 

 every day, for twenty-eight successive days, after 

 which they buried them in the earth, in which they 

 were supposed to conceal themselves for twenty-eight 

 days, being the duration of a lunar revolution, and 

 during which time the race of the scarabasi was sup- 

 posed to be animated. On the twenty-ninth 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 its ball, from which a fresh race of 

 scarabsi make their appearance, casting the fragments 

 into the water. For these fanciful and erroneous 

 reasons, the Egyptians, anxious to delineate a being 

 engendered by itself selected the scarabseus. The 

 second species has two horns upon its head like those 

 of a bull, and was consecrated to the moon, that 

 goddess of whom the heavenly bull, according to the 

 Egyptians, was a type. The third species had but a 

 single horn, and was of a different form. This, as 

 well as the sacred ibis, was supposed to be conse- 

 crated to Mercury. Apollonius also mentions that 

 the figure of a blind scarabaeus was emblematical of 

 the death of a person who had perished from a fever 

 occasioned by the excessive heat of the sun. 



The first of these species is considered by Latreille 

 in a valuable memoir upon the sacred insects of the 

 Egyptians, to be that insect which he has described 

 under the name of the Ateuchus sEgi/pliorum, and 



Ateuchu 



which, having a metallic greenish tint, and being of a 

 larger size, is supposed by him to have attracted the 

 attention of this people, rather than the other species, 

 which are uniformly black. Moreover, the former is 

 only found iu Nubia and Ethiopia, which were the 

 portions of the continent of Africa supposed to have 

 been first inhabited by the Egyptians. On coming 

 more northward, however, other species are found, 

 which, occupying the station of the former, necessarily 

 became objects of a similar veneration. Latreille, 

 was only able to find figures of the former on the 

 mummies opened in his presence. The second species 

 mentioned by Apollonius appears to be a species of 

 Copris, or Typhaus, resembling our common English 

 bull comber (Typhcuus vulgaris) ; and the third is 

 probably a species of the former genus, allied to 

 our Copris lunaris. 



As objects of worship these insects were sculptured 

 with great skill, but the figures which have been dis- 

 covered exhibit so many varieties, so much disfigured 

 by the caprice of the artist, that the determination of 

 many of them must be very doubtful ; still their effi- 

 gies must certainly have had the effect of recalling to 

 mind the systems of cosmogony and mythology 

 established by this extraordinary race of men. Har- 

 bingers of spring, and the types of fecundity, an- 

 nouncing by their reproduction the renewing of nature; 

 singular from their instinct and forms, and occupied 

 nceasingly like Sisyphus of old in rolling their balls 

 along, it is not surprising that these insects offered to 

 he priests of Egypt an emblem of the works of Osiris 

 or the Sun. And it was not sufficient for their super- 

 stition that they should be found in every temple, 

 upon the bas reliefs and capitals of columns, and 

 upon obelisks, they were engraved with other hiero- 

 glyphical figures upon different kinds of stone, and 

 ashioned into medallions of carved cornelian, en- 

 Braved upon split pearls, pierced in order to form 

 necklaces, as well as for rings and seals. The image 

 of this tutelar deity followed the Egyptians, and de- 

 scended with them to the tomb, small models of the 

 scarabaei being usually placed in the chests of their 

 sarcophagi ; and one of these, mentioned in Greaves' 

 Pyramidographia," was formed of a magnet, which, 

 .Ithough three thousand years had elapsed since it 

 was taken from the rock, its natural bed, still retained 

 ts magnetic virtue. Sometimes even the insects 

 hemselves were put in the coffin ; and on some of 

 he mummies lately opened in this country, small 



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