I 
COLEOPTEROUS INSECTS. 193 
the sun. All the individuals of this scarabaeus are 
of the male sex: when the insect wishes to pro- 
duce others, it seeks for the dung of cattle, and 
forms it into a ball — the figure of the world ; this 
it rolls with its hind feet, going backwards, and 
in the direction from east to west, as the world is 
so conveyed by its movements. The scarabaeus 
buries this ball in the earth, where it remains con- 
cealed for twenty-eight days, a period equal to a 
lunar revolution, during which the young scarabaeus 
becomes animated. On the 29th day, which the 
insect knows to be that of the conjunction of the 
moon with the sun, and of the birth of the world, 
it opens the ball and throws it into the water. The 
animals which then issue from it are the scarabaei. 
It is for these reasons that the Egyptians, when 
they wish to designate a being produced by itself, 
or to express the idea of a birth, a father, the world, 
& c. represent a scarabaeus. 
The thirty fingers mentioned in the above ac- 
count are no doubt the joints of the feet or tarsi, 
which being five to each of the six feet, amount ex- 
actly to that number. The rays alluded to are re- 
presented by the six teeth or angular projections of 
the head, a character which is often expressed with 
great accuracy on the Egyptian monuments and en- 
graved stones. As the male of this species, con- 
trary to what is observed in the generality of co- 
prophagous beetles, scarcely differs in external ap- 
pearance from the female, and appears to share with 
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