Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1899-05-21
THE SACRED BEETLE
The CURIOUS PERFo 4MANcEs THAT
LED TO HIS DELEGATION

1t Was Reverenced by the Egyptians Dur.
ing Life and Preserved After Death-rhe
Great sagacitv Displayed by 1t Gor the
Preservation of Its Young.
As far as can make out, a pair of
beetles, male and female, seem usually
TO share a hole in common, and to roll
balls of food to it either alone or in
concert. / cannot say have ever seen
much cooperation except between
such partners. Once a ball is secured
and safely landed-for here, as else
Where, there's many a slip 'twixt the
cup and the lip-the happy couple pro-
coed to eat it up, and apparently do not
emerge again from their burrow till
the supply is exhausted. Patient ma
turallsts say that one ball has been
known to last a scarab as long as
fortnight, but this l do not youch for
of personal knowledge. When more
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.
Till very lately 1t was universally be-
lleYed that the female scarab laid an
egg IL 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
contradicted with great emphasis by
good French observer, who opened
many balls and found no eggs; but |
cannot accept his conclusion. 1 opened
number of balls myself near Venice
this year, and saw in several one or
two eggs, while in one case funearthed
from hole1 / discovered a half grown
larya. l venture, therefore, in this
matter to believe my own eyes as
against those of even the most ceIe.
brated and authoritative entomolo-
gists. In Egypt it has been univers-
ally believed from all antiquity-and /
think quite rightly-that after the
scarab has laid an egg in the ball the
parents unite in rolling it to a place
of safety, above the level of the an
nual inundation due to the rise of the
Nile. At any rate, scarabs abound in
Egypt.
AT . very early date. it would seem,
the curious action of these beetles at
tracted the attention of the ancient
Egyptians, whose worship of animals
was one of the most marked features
of their monstrous religion. Hence
grew a strange and widespread super
stltion. A race which deified the
hawk. the cat, the ibis and the iackal
was not likely to overlook the marvel
lous proceedings of the pious and
dutiful scarab. So the very early
Egyptians, we may conjecture, began
nv Iii No 81.
divine in literature of an insect which
worked so ceaselessly on behalf of its
young. and rolled such hSg round balls
behind it up sISch relatively large hill
locks. Watching a little closer, as
time went on, the Egyptian discov-
cred, no doubt, that sacred beetles did
not proceed directly from sacred bee
ties like lambs from ewes, but grew,
as it were, cut of the dirt and corrup-
ton of the mysterious pellets.
A Modern observer would, OF course,
at once suspect that the scarab laid an
egg inside tie ball, and would prompt
iy proceed to pull one open and look
for it. But that cold scientific method
was not likely = commend itself to
the mystic and deeply religious Egyp.
tan mind The priests by the Nile
jumped rather to the conclusion that
the scarab, collected dirt in order to
make a 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 scientific facts as the time
such q conclusion was 10y no means
unnatural. Once started on SO strange
a set of ideas, the Egyptians proceed
cd to evolve a worship of the scarab
which grew ever and developed, as
they thought the scarab itself did,
practically out of nothing. The i'm
mortality of the soul and the resurrec-
ton of the body were the central ideas
of Egyptian religion; the thinkers of
Thehes and Memphis instantly per-
ceived a fanciful anology between the
scarab rising from its bed of dirt and
the mummy reyiying when the expect
ed day of resurrection should at last
arrive. AS a consequence of this an
alogy the scarab was made sacred. 1t
was reverenced during its life and
often preserved after IT'S death, like
the mummied cats and hawks and sa-
cred Apis bulls which formed such spe-
cial objects of veneration to the devout
of Egypt.-Grant Allen.