Batit—Ldentification of the Animals and Plants of India. 338 
82. Tuer Drxartron (Aikarpov). 
Scarabeus sacer, Linn. (?)—The Dung Beetle. 
Under the name Dikairon, Ktesias described, according to Photios % 
and AXlian,” a bird! of the size of a partridge’s egg, which buried its 
dung in the earth. To this dung, which was said to be an object of 
search, the properties of an opiate and poison were attributed. It was 
so precious that it was included among the costly presents sent by the 
king of the Indians to the Persian monarch, and no one in Persia 
possessed any of it except the king and his mother. 
By the Greeks it was called décasov (7. ¢. just), that being probably 
the nearest approximation of a known word to the Indian or Persian 
name. This so-called bird! was, I believe, one of the Coprophagi of 
Latreille, namely, the common dung beetle called Gobaronda in Hin- 
dustani, which buries pellets of cattle droppings as a receptacle for its 
eggs and food for the larvee when hatched. 
fs Waewcn = mes 
Scarabeus sacer.—Linn. 
I do not know whether these pellets are used medicinally, though 
it is not improbable that they are, but I strongly suspect that the 
substance, described by Ktesias, to which he has attributed this origin 
76 Heloga. in Photii, Bibl. xxii. 17. 77 De Nat. An., iv. 41. 
