NOMENCLATURE OF SCARAB.EI. 21 



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

 ral, as Kuvbot-Qo; 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 title c , and it was accordingly 

 restricted to these remarkable insects by Mouffet and the 

 earliest modern naturalists. The name Scarabceus 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. Linnasus, 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 Scarabceus has since 

 been subjected. Indeed, when this last was taken away 

 from the above-mentioned celebrated insects of Pliny with 

 which Linnaeus 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 s-xagitpao/tKi from <rxag^«j 

 penicillus. 



"ZKa^itpikojxxi. \uta, <rx.<k<it<rtt>, y^xtpa, (Hesych.') scarifico, fodio. 



Scarabceus for 2xaga<pa7os, as baltena from tpxhamx. In the same manner 

 the Italians still say escaravaju. — The verb Lta.aKa.^n<T«.i is also properly 

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

 their claws. 



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

 venit ut Scarabaeis." 



* Ibid. " Alii focos et prata crebris foraminibus excavant nocturno 

 stridore vocales." Which evidently applies to the crickets. 



c Ibid. xxx. 30. " Scarabaeum qui pilulas rolvit. Propter hunc ^Egypti 

 magna pars Scarabseos inter numina colit." 



