NOMENCLATURE OF SCARAB^I. 21 



used by the Romans to designate the Coleoptera^ in gene- 

 i-al, as KxvQcigog might have done among the Greeks. It 

 may also be understood as having embraced some Ortho- 

 ptera, such as the genera Acheta and Gryllotalpa}' . Pliny, 

 however, gives a particular description of the sacred beetles 

 of the Egyptians under this titled and it was accordingly 

 restricted to these remarkable insects by MoufFet and the 

 earliest modern naturalists. The name Scarab(zus has 

 in truth had so many different applications given to it, that 

 it would seem above all others to be that which for ever 

 ought to remain undisturbed. Linnaeus, Scopoli, and their 

 immediate followers may nevertheless be considered as 

 the only persons who properly applied it; and Geoffroy, in 

 giving the name of Copris to the exscutellated insects, may 

 be said to have been the primary cause of all the uncer- 

 tainty and changes to which the name Scarabaus has since 

 been subjected. Indeed, when this last was taken away 

 from the above-mentioned celebrated insects of Pliny with 

 which Liimseus had left it, it became a matter of indiffe- 

 rence to what division of the Lamellicornes it was applied. 

 We find therefore, that though Fabricius in the first 



it should come from the Greek, it is most likely to prove the corruption of 

 a Doric word, and the primitive may possibly be rxK^ifdofiai from rxd^ifcs 

 penicillus. 



'Xxcc^ifdofiiti. ^v0, ffxd^Tu, y^i^u, (Hesych.) scarifico, fodio. 



Scarahisus for 'Sxa^aifaTos, as haltsna from (faXatva. In the same manner 

 the Italians still say escaravaju. — The verb A/a<r*agi$?(ra( is also properly 

 applied to the action of animals which scratch or dig up the earth with 

 their claws. 



* Plin. Hist. Nat. xi. 34. " Quibusdam pennarum tutelae crusta super- 

 venit ut Scarabseis." 



" Ibid. " Alii focos et prata crebris foraminibus exeavant nocturno 

 stridore vocales." Which evidently applies to the crickets. 



'' Ibid. -xxx. 30. "Scarabseum qui pilulas Tolvit. Propter hunc jEgypti 

 magna pars Scarabaeos inter numina colit." 



f^^^'^ 





