26 LUCANIDvE — STAG-BEETLES. 



Animal BioGrraphy, as related to him by one of his own 

 intimate and intelligent friends, might have been supposed 

 by the general reader to have been borrowed from the 

 Travels of the veracious Munchausen. " An intimate and 

 intelligent friend of the editor informed him that he had 

 often found several heads of these insects together, all per- 

 fectly alive, while the abdomens were gone, and the trunks 

 and heads were left together. How this circumstance took 

 place he never could discover with any certainty. He sup- 

 poses, however, that it must have been in consequence of 

 the severe battles that sometimes take place among the 

 fiercest of the insect tribes ; but their mouths not seeming 

 formed for animal food, he is at a loss to guess what be- 

 comes of their abdomens. They do not fly till most of the 

 birds have retired to rest, and indeed if we were to suppose 

 that any of them devoured them, it would be difficult to 

 say why the heads or trunks should be rejected."^ 



Moufet says: "When the head (of the Stag-beetle) is 

 cut off, the other parts of the body Kve long, but the head 

 (contrary to the usual custom of insects) lives longer. This 

 is said to be dedicated to the moon, and the head and horns 

 of it wax with the moon, and do wane with the moon, but it 

 is the opinion of vain astrologers."^ 



The mandibles of the Stag-beetle were formerly employed 

 in medicine, under the name of Horns of Scarabaei. This 

 remedy was administered as an absorbent, in case of pains 

 or convulsions supposed to be produced by acidity in the 

 2)rimce vide} This is the insect most probably alluded to 

 by Plin}^, when he says, " Folke use to hang Beetles about 

 the neck of 3^oung babes, as present remedies against many 

 maladies."* The Scarahaeus coriiutus of Schroder (v. 345) 

 is also, perhaps, the Lucanus cervus. We learn from this 

 gentleman that it has been recommended to be worn as an 

 amulet for an ague, or pains and contractions of the ten- 

 dons, if applied to the part affected. He tells us also, that 

 if tied about the necks of children, it enables them to retain 

 their urine. An oil, prepared by infusion of these insects, 



1 ^''af. Hist, of Ins., Lond., 1838, ii. 156. 



2 Theatr. Ins., p. 149. Topsel's Hist, of Beasts, p. 1006. 



3 Cuvier, An. King. — Ins., i. 533. 



* Nat. Hist., xi. 34. Holl. Trans., p. 326. K. 



