GROUP LAMELLICORNES. 63 



The Lamellicornes received their name from the structure of their antenna? ; the 

 extremity being a laminated knob, composed of three or more leatlike laminae, "which open 

 and shut somewhat like the leaves of a book. The first division of this group consists of 

 the Scarabides, the first section of which are named Coprophagi, from the kind of food on 

 which they subsist : they feed upon and live in ordure, or excrements of all kinds. The 

 ancients gave the name pilluluria to certain species which have the curious instinct of 

 rolling the excrement into balls with their hind feet, and in which they have deposited 

 their eggs : when the ball has acquired a sufficient degree of solidity, it is pushed into a 

 hole previously prepared for its reception. 



A foreign species, the Ateuchits sacer, was an object of religious veneration and worship 

 anions the ancient Egyptians. With them it was symbolical of the world, the sun, and the 

 warrior : of the world, from the globular shape of its balls, and perhaps also from the 

 progeny they contained ; of the sun, from the angular projections from its head in the 

 form of rays : the six legs have five tarsi each, and hence they represented the days of 

 the month. The idea of the courageous warrior was imbibed from the supposition that the 

 species were all males. The Roman soldiers wore its image on their signets ; and it is said 

 that it is still a custom with the Egyptian women to eat them, to render themselves pro- 

 lific : as the sun is the source of all fertility, so the eating of this symbol would impart 

 to them the same desirable quality. When we reflect a moment upon the attention which 

 these curious insects pay to their offspring, and the intense emotion they exhibit in rolling 

 their balls, a work which they prosecute until overcome by exhaustion, it is not at all 

 surprising that the ancients should have made them symbolical of the highest order of 

 qualities. 



The Copris Carolina closely resembles the symbolical beetle of the ancients, just referred 

 to. The Genus Copris makes its abode beneath the fresh excrement of the cow ; and hence 

 its hills of dirt are common in pastures, by roadsides, and other places where the cow is 

 kept. This insect, however, never rolls a regular ball, but collects a quantity into an ir- 

 regularly shaped mass. The true pillularia belong to the Genus Geotrupes, and a lew 

 other allied genera. 



The larva of the Geotrupes resembles that of the Melolontha, being of a dirty white 

 color, soft, and, when not engaged in feeding, it lies coiled in a semicircle :. they have 

 six scaly feet and a scaly head. Subsisting at first upon the magazine of food which the 

 mother has provided in the offal in which they are enveloped, they afterwards penetrate 

 into the earth, and feed upon roots. It requires a year or two for their perfection : they 

 are then transformed into nymphs ; and another year passes, before they are ready to 

 become perfect insects. 



The Lamellicornes coii<ist of ten families, each presenting some peculiarity in the 

 antenme, mandibles or maxillfe, by due attention to which the student will be able to 

 determine the position an unknown insect may occupy. The first of these ten families is 



