Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1899-04-06
THE SACRED BEETLE.
Curious Acts of the Scarabnus That
Led to His Dedication.

As far as | can make out, % pair Of bee
Ties, male and female, seem usually to
share hole in common and to roll balls
1t food to it either alone or in concert
cannot say have ever seen much cooper
ntion except between such partners. Once
ball Is secured and safely landcd-for
here, us elsewhere, there's many slip
'twiXt the cup and the lip--tho happy
couple proceed to eat it up and apparently
do not emerge again from their burrow
till the supply ID exhausted Patient nat
nralsts say that one ball has been known
to last n scarab as long as n fortnight, but
this do not vouch for of personal knowl-
edge. When moro food is wanted, the
couple emerge once more on the open sand
and begin to collect fresh dung and refuse,
which they roll into a new food ball and
then dry and harden
III very lately it was universally be-
lieved that the female scarab laid an egg
in some of the balls and that the young
grubs Matched within such food stocks
and began at once to devour them This
belief has recently been contradictcd with
great emphasis by good French observer,
who opened many balls and found no eggs,
but cannot accept his conclusion
opened u number Of balls myself near
Venice this year and saw in several one or
two eggs while in ore case tunearthed
from hole) | discovered half grown
larva. l venture, therefore, in this mat
ter to believe my own eyes rs against those
of even the most celebrated and authorita-
tive cntomologists In Egypt 1t has been
universally believed from all antiquity
and l think quito rightly-that after tho
scarab has laid an egg in the ball the u,r-
cnts unite in rolling it to place of safety,
above the level of the annual inundation
due to the rise of the Nile At any rate.
scarabs abound in Egypt
At n very early date, it would seem, the
curious action of these beetles attracted
the attention of the ancient Egyptians
whose worship of animals was one of tho
most marked features of their monstrous
religion; hence grew strange and wide
spread superstition A race which dcifed
The hawk, the cat, the ibis and tho jackal
was not likely to overlook the marvellous
proceedings of the pious and dutiful scarab.
So the very early Egyptians, we may con-
lecture, began by thinking there must be
something divine in the nature of an in
sect which worked so ccaselessly on behalf
OF its young and rolled such big round
balls behind it up such relatively large
hillocks. Watching little closer, as time
went on, the Egyptian discovered, no
doubt, that sacred beetles did not proceed
directly from sacred beetles, like lambs
from ewes, but grew, as it were, out of
the dirt and corruption Of the mysterious
pellets
modern observer would of course at
once suspect that the scarab laid an egg
inside the ball and would promptly pro-
coed to pull one open and look for 1t, but
that cold scientific method was not likely
to commend itself to the mystic and deep
ly religious Egyptian mind The priests
by the Nile jumped rather to the conclu-
sion that the scarab collected dirt in order
to make future scarab out Of clay, and
that from this dirt the young beetle grew,
self existent, self developed. self created
Considering the absence Of scientific
knowledge and comparative groups of sci
entitic facts Mt the time, such q conclusion
was by no means unnatural Once started
on 80 strange n set Of ideas, the Egyptian rs
proceeded to evolve worship Of the scarab
which grew ever and developed, as they
thought the scarab itself did practically
out of nothing The Immortality of the
soul and the resurrection of the body were
the central ideas Of Egyptian religion.
The thinkers Of Thebes and Memphis in
stantly perceived fanciful analogy be-
tween the scarab rising from its bed Of
dirt and the mummy reviving when the
expected day of resurrection should at last
arrive. AS consequence of this analogy
the scarab was made sacred, 1t was rev.
erenced during it's life and often preserved
after its death, like the mulnmied cats and
hawks and sacred Apis bulls which formed
such special objects of veneration to the
devout Of Egypt.-Grant Allen in Strand
Magazine.