DYNASTIDiE — HERCULES- BEETLE, ETC. 45 



noblemen some jolly preferment or some rich province. It 

 keeps away likewise the head-ach, which, truly, is no small 

 mischief, especially to great drinkers 



" The magicians will scarce finde credit, when foolishly 

 rather than truly, they report and imagine that the precious 

 stone Chelonitis, that is adorned with golden spots, put 

 into hot water with a Beetle, raiseth tempests. Pliny, I. 

 37, c. 10. 



" The eagle, the Beetle's proud and cruel enemy, does no 

 less make havock of and devour this creature of so mean 

 a rank, yet as soon as it gets an opportunity, it returneth 

 like for kke, and sufficiently punisheth that spoiler. For it 

 flyeth up nimbly into her nest with its fellow-soldiers, the 

 Scara-beetles, and in the absence of the old she eagle bring- 

 eth out of the nest the eagle's eggs one after another, till 

 there be none left; which falling, and being broken, the 

 young ones, while they are yet unshapen, being dashed 

 miserably against the stones, are deprived of life, before 

 they can have any sense of it. Neither do I see indeed 

 how she should more torment the eagle than in her young 

 ones. For some who slight the greatest torments of their 

 own body, cannot endure the least torments of their sons."^ 



Pliny says that in Thrace, near Olynthus, there is a 

 small locality, the only one in which the beetle^ cannot ex- 

 ist ; from which circumstance it has received the name of 

 " Cantharolethus — Fatal-to-the-Beetle."^ 



Dynastidae — Hercules-beetle, etc. 



The Hercules-beetle, Dynmtes Hercules, is four, five, 

 or even sometimes six inches long, and a native of South 

 America. It is said great numbers of these immense in- 

 sects are sometimes seen on the Mammasa-tree, rasping off 

 the rind of the slender branches by working nimbly round 

 them with their horns, till they cause the juice to flow, 

 which they drink to intoxication, and thus fall senseless to 



1 Theatr. Ins., p. 160. Topsel's Hist, of Beasts, p. 1012. 



2 Cuvier suggests that the Scarabseus nasicomis of Linnaeus, which 

 haunts dead bark, or the S. auratus, may be the insect here referred to. 



3 Nat. Hist., xi. 28 (34). 



5* 



