The Sacred Beetle: the Nymph 



Lamellicorns, quotes Horapollo and his al- 

 lowance of thirty fingers to the insect ac- 

 cording to the number of days which the sun 

 takes to traverse a sign of the Zodiac. He 

 repeats Latreille's explanation. He goes 

 even farther. Here are his own words: 



" If we count each joint of the tarsi as a 

 finger, we must admit that this insect was 

 examined with great attention." 



Examined with great attention! By 

 whom, pray? By Horapollo? Not a bit 

 of it! By you, my master: yes, indeed yes! 

 And yet the rule, in its very positiveness, is 

 misleading you for a moment; it misleads 

 you again and in a more serious fashion 

 when, in your illustration of the Sacred 

 Beetle, you represent the insect with tarsi 

 on its fore-legs, tarsi similar to those on the 

 other legs. You, painstaking describer 

 though you be, have in your turn been the 

 victim of a momentary aberration. The 

 rule is so general that it has made you 

 lose sight of the singularity of the exception. 



What did Horapollo himself see? Ap- 

 parently what we see in our day. If 

 Latreille's explanation be right, as every- 

 thing seems to indicate, if the Egyptian 



149 



