The Sacred Beetle: the Nymph 



shell, with not one exception, is endowed 

 with the regulation four tarsi. 



Well, my theorists, what do you say to 

 that? For the two front legs you offer a 

 sort of explanation; and the four others give 

 you a categorical denial. Have you not 

 been taking your fancies for facts? 



Then what is the cause of the Sacred 

 Beetle's original mutilation? I will frankly 

 confess that I have no idea. Nevertheless 

 those two maimed members are very strange, 

 so strange indeed that they have enticed the 

 masters, the greatest masters, into lament- 

 able errors. Listen, first of all to Latreille,^ 

 the prince of descriptive entomologists. In 

 his article on the insects which ancient Egypt 

 painted or carved upon her monuments,^ he 

 quotes the writings of Horapollo,^ an unique 

 document preserved for us in the papyri for 

 the glorification of the sacred insect: 



" One would be tempted at first," he says, 



1 Pierre Andre Latreille (1762-1833), one of the founders 

 of entomological science, a professor at the Museum 

 d'h'istoire naturelle and member of the Academie des 

 Sciences. — Translator's Note. 



2 Cf. Memoires du Museum d'histoire naturelle: vol. v., 

 p. 249. — Author's Note. 



^Horapollo Nilous, Orus Apollo, or Horus Apollo (/?. 

 circa 400), author of the Hieroglyphica. — Translator's 

 Note. 



147 



