A popular belief in Germany is, that the Stag-beetle, Lucanus cervus, carries burning coals into houses by means of its jaws, and that it has thus occasioned many fearful fires.
In the New Forest of England, the Stag-beetle by the rustics is called the Devil's Imp, and is believed to be sent to do some evil to the corn; and woe be to this unfortunate insect when met by these superstitious foresters, for it is immediately stoned to death. A writer, in the Notes and Queries, states that he saw one of these insects actually thus destroyed.
Professor Bradley, of Cambridge, mentions the following remarkable instance of insect strength in a Stag-beetle. He asserts that he saw the beetle carry a wand a foot and a half long, and half an inch thick, and even fly with it to the distance of several yards. Linnaeus observes, that if the elephant was as strong in proportion as the Stag-beetle, it would be able to tear up rocks and level mountains.
Bingley has the following marvelous story of the supposed rapacity of the Stag-beetle, which, it has been remarked, if not gravely stated by the reverend editor of the Animal Biography, as related to him by one of his own intimate and intelligent friends, might have been supposed by the general reader to have been borrowed from the Travels of the veracious Munchausen. "An intimate and intelligent friend of the editor informed him that he had often found several heads of these insects together, all perfectly alive, while the abdomens were gone, and the trunks and heads were left together. How this circumstance took place he never could discover with any certainty. He supposes, however, that it must have been in consequence of the severe battles that sometimes take place among the fiercest of the insect tribes; but their mouths not seeming formed for animal food, he is at a loss to guess what becomes of their abdomens. They do not fly till most of the birds have retired to rest, and indeed if we were to suppose that any of them devoured them, it would be difficult to say why the heads or trunks should be rejected."
Moufet says: "When the head (of the Stag-beetle) is cut off, the other parts of the body live long, but the head (contrary to the usual custom of insects) lives longer. This is said to be dedicated to the moon, and the head and horns of it wax with the moon, and do wane with the moon, but it is the opinion of vain astrologers."
The mandibles of the Stag-beetle were formerly employed in medicine, under the name of Horns of Scarabaei. This remedy was administered as an absorbent, in case of pains or convulsions supposed to be produced by acidity in the primae viae. This is the insect most probably alluded to by Pliny, when he says, "Folke use to hang Beetles about the neck of young babes, as present remedies against many maladies." The Scarabaeus cornidus of Schroder (v. 345) is also, perhaps, the Lucanus cervus. We learn from this gentleman that it has been recommended to be worn as an amulet for an ague, or pains and contractions of the tendons, if applied to the part affected. He tells us also, that if tied about the necks of children, it enables them to retain their urine. An oil, prepared by infusion of these insects, is recommended by the same author, in pains of the ears, if dropped into them.
The Cossus of the Greeks and Romans, which, at the time of the greatest luxury among the latter, was introduced at the tables of the rich, was the larva, or grub, of a large beetle that lives in the stems of trees, particularly the oak; and was, most probably, the larva of the Stag-beetle, Lucanus cervus. On this subject, however, entomologists differ very widely, for it has been supposed the larva of the Calandra palmarum by Geoffroy and Keferotein; of the Prionus damicornis by Drury; but of the Lucanus cervus by Roesel, Scopoli, and most others. The first two, being neither natives of Italy nor inhabiting the oak, are out of the question. But the larva of the Lucanus cervus, and perhaps also the Prionus coriarius, which are found in the oak as well as in other trees, may each have been eaten under this name, as their difference could not be discernible either to collectors or cooks. Linnaeus, following the opinion of Ray, supposed the caterpillar of the great Goat-moth to be the cossus.
Pliny tells us that the epicures, who looked upon these cossi as delicacies, even fed them with meal, in order to fatten them.
Our children, who call the Stag-beetles and the Passalus cornutus, oxen, are wont to hitch them with threads to chips and small sticks, and, for their amusement, make them drag the wood along as if they were oxen.
Scarabaeidae — Dung-beetles.
The Coprion, Cantharus, and Heliocantharus of the ancients were evidently the Scarabaeus (Ateuchus) pilurarius, or, as it is commonly called, the Tumble-dung, or one nearly related to it, for it is described as rolling backward large masses of dung; and in doing this it attracted such general attention as to give rise to the proverb Cantharus pilulam. From the name, derived from a word signifying an ass, it should seem the Grecian beetle made, or was supposed to make, its pills of asses' dung; and this is confirmed by a passage in one of the plays of Aristophanes, the Irene, where a beetle of this kind is introduced, on which one of the characters rides to heaven to petition Jupiter for peace. The play begins with one domestic desiring another to feed the Cantharus with some bread, and afterward orders his companion to give him another kind of bread made of asses' dung.
Illustrative of the great strength of the Tumble-bug, the following anecdote may be related: Dr. Brichell was supping one evening in a planter's house of North Carolina, when two of these beetles were placed, without his knowledge, under the candlestick. A few blows were struck on the table, when, to his great surprise, the candlestick began to move about, apparently without any agency, except that of a spiritual nature; and his surprise was not lessened when, on taking one of them up, he discovered that it was only a chafer that moved.
In Denmark, the common Dung-beetle, Geotrupes stercorarius, is called Skarnbosse or Tordyvel, and an augury as to the harvest is drawn by the peasants from the mites which infest it. The notion is, that if there are many of these mites between the fore feet, there will be an early harvest, but a late one if they abound between the hind feet.
In Gothland, where Thor was worshiped above and more than the other gods, the Scarabaeus (Geotrupes) stercorarius was considered sacred to him, and bore the name of Thorbagge — Thor's-bug. "Relative to this beetle," says Thorpe, "a superstition still exists, which has been transmitted from father to son, that if any one finds in his path a Thorbagge lying helpless upon its back, and turns it on its feet, he expiates seven sins; because Thor in the time of heathenism was regarded as a mediator with a higher power, or All-father. On the introduction of Christianity, the priests strove to terrify the people from the worship of their old divinities, pronouncing both them and their adherents to be evil spirits, and belonging to hell. On the poor Thorbagge the name was now bestowed of Thordjefvul or Thordyfvel — Thor-devil, by which it is still known in Sweden Proper. No one now thinks of Thor, when he finds the helpless creature lying on its back, but the good-natured countryman seldom passes it without setting it on its feet, and thinking of his sin's atonement."
A common symbol of the Creator among the Hindoos (from whom it passed into Egypt, and thence into Scandinavia, says Bjornstjerna) was the Scarabaeus (Ateuchus) sacer, commonly called the Sacred-beetle of the Egyptians. Of this insect we next treat at length.
Of the many animals worshiped by the ancient Egyptians, one of the most celebrated, perhaps, is the insect commonly known as the Sacred-scarab Scarabaeus sacer. This name was given it by Linnaeus, but later writers know it as the Ateuchus sacer. The insect is found throughout all Egypt, in the southern part of Europe, in China, the East Indies, in Barbary, and at the Cape of Good Hope.
The Ateuchus sacer, however, is not the only insect that was regarded as an object of veneration by the Egyptians but another species of the same genus, lately discovered in the Sennari by M. Caillaud de Nantes, appears to have first fixed the attention of this people, in consequence of its more brilliant colors, and of the country in which it was found, which, it is supposed, was their first sojourn. This species, which Cuvier has named Ateuchus aegyptorum, is green, with a golden tint, while the first is black. The Buprestis and Cantharus, or Copris, were also held in high repute by the Egyptians, and used as synonymous emblems of the same deities as the Scarabaeus. This is further confirmed by the fact of S. Passalacqua having found a species of Buprestis embalmed in a tomb at Thebes. But the Scarabaeus, or Ateuchus sacer, is the beetle most commonly represented, and the type of the whole class; and the one referred to in this article under the general name of Scarabaeus, unless when otherwise particularly mentioned.
The Scarabaeus, according to the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, was sacred to the Sun and to Pthah, the personification of the creative power of the Deity; and it was adopted as an emblem or symbol of
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The World — According to P. Valerianus, the Scarab was symbolical of the world, on account of the globular form of its pellets of dung, and from an odd notion that they were rolled from sunrise to sunset.
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The Sun. — P. Valerianus supposes this insect to have been a symbol of the sun, because of the angular projection from its head resembling rays, and from the thirty joints of the six tarsi of its feet answering to the days of an (ordinary) solar month. According to Plutarch, it was because these insects cast the seed of generation into round balls of dung, as a genial nidus, and roll them backward with their feet, while they themselves look directly forward. And as the sun appears to proceed in the heavens in a course contrary to the signs, thus the Scarabaei turn their balls toward the west, while they themselves continue creeping toward the east; by the first of these motions exhibiting the diurnal, and by the second the annual, motion of the earth and the planets. Porphyry gives the same reason as Plutarch why the beetle was considered, as he calls it, "a living image of the sun." Horapollo assigns two reasons for the Scarab being taken as an emblem of the sun. He tells us there are three species of beetles: one of which has the form of a cat, and is radiated; and this one from a supposed analogy the Egyptians have dedicated to the Sun, because, first, the statue of the Deity of Heliopolis (City of the Sun) has the form of a cat! In this, however, Wilkinson asserts, that Horapollo is wrong; for the Deity of Heliopolis, under the form of a cat, was the emblem of Bubastis, and not of Re, a type of the sun; and the presence of her statue is explained by the custom of each city assigning to the Divinities of neighboring places a conspicuous post in its own temples; and Bubastis was one of the principal contemplar Deities of Heliopolis. The second reason of Horapollo is, that this insect has thirty fingers, which correspond to the thirty days of a solar month.