Budge, Ernest A. Wallis: Some account of the collection of Egyptian antiquities in the possession of Lady Meux: of Theobalds Park, Waltham Cross (London, 1896)

Nos. 317—833 and 1392—1785.

SCARABS.

In the south of Egypt, and in Nubia particularly,
the traveller may frequently observe a greenish-black
or black beetle toiling up a sand-heap, and rolling
before it with its hind legs a ball, an inch and a half
or two inches in diameter, made of dirt, in which it
has wrapped its eggs. Naturalists have called this
beetle Scarabceus sacer, and they consider it to be
the type of Coprophagi or "dung-eaters." A remark-
able peculiarity exists in the structure and situation
of the hind legs, for they are placed very close to the
end of the body, and when the beetle rolls its ball of
eggs along it seems as if it stands upon its head, and as
if its head is turned away from the ball. In this insect
the ancient Egyptians saw an emblem of the Sun-god,
who rolls his egg across the sky daily. Like him, it
was supposed to have produced itself, for all beetles
were males, and Horapollo and other writers affirm
that a female beetle never existed. It was said to be