THE ANIilAL KINGDOM. 1G7 



bseus became the symbol of fecunditj^, and sculpture mul- 

 tiplied to infinity its image on all the monuments of the 

 Pharaohs^ from the mouth of the king of rivers to the 

 heart of Nubia. On the other hand, the perseverance 

 with which the dung-beetle rolls up its ball again, like 

 Sisyphus in the fable, seemed to some to offer a reminis- 

 cence of the labours of Isis and Osiris. Hence we see it 

 represented everywhere on the pediments of their temples, 

 having its ball, an emblem of the globe, placed between 

 its legs.^ 



^ This at least is the opiuiou avowed by M. Latreille in liis Memoire sur les 

 Insectes Sacres. Nothing is more common than sculptures and paintings repre- 

 senting the Scaraba?ns or sacred dung-beetle of the Egyptians, and even some 

 real ones have been discovered in the sarcophagi of their mummies. Some of 

 the artificial Ateuchi (Scarabtei) met with among the monuments on the borders 

 of the Nile, were pierced so as to form necklaces for women ; others were used 

 as seals, as is shown by the inscriptions beneath them. 



Plutarch distinctly says that the military caste in Egy]5t made use of the 

 figure of a Scarabcens for a seal, and Horapollou explains this by asserting 

 tliat this insect peculiarly represents man, since there are no females of its 

 species. Plutarch's opinion has also been adopted by MM. Jomard and Cham- 

 poUion, and the latter says that nothing is more common than carved Scarabsei, 

 mounted in rings or not, on which we can discern different weapons and even 

 armed men. — Horapollon, Horapollinis Kiloi IJieroghjphica. Amsterdam, 1835. 



Among the people of Egypt the effigy of the sacred ScaraljEeus has been 

 repeated in a thousand different ways, as though it were a kind of tutelary god. 

 It is seen everywhere carved on their monuments, tem] iles, tombs, and obelisks ; 

 there are even some repre.sented on most bas-reliefs, and thej' are found at the 

 present day sculptured of all dimensions, and in every possible material, from 

 the commonest stones to the most precious metals. I saw some of colossal size 

 in the British Museum; they were of granite, and three to four feet long. But 

 for common use they were made of very small dimensions and in prodigious 

 quantities; they are found of marble, porphyry, agate, lapis lazuli, garnet, and 

 gold. 



In my narrative I have conformed to the opinions of French zoologists but 

 it is probable that when the history of the dung-beetle has been thoroughly 

 studied, we shall not hear that it is in spring, but in autumn or the beginning of 

 winter, that they form their balls. Indeed, it was in October that I s,aw, for 

 the first time, the AteiicJius sacer (dung-beetle), in the environs of Pome, occupied 

 on the little hills of Tivoli in rolling their balls, and in Upper Egypt I found 

 them at the same task in November. Perhaps also on the borders of the Nile 



