BEETLES. 265

religious system of that remarkable people, has never, we
believe, been exactly determined; but that it occupied a
considerable place among their sacred creatures, seems to
be evinced by the fact, that there is scarcely any figure
which occurs so frequently in Egyptian sculpture and paint-
ing. Visitors to the British Museum may satisfy them-
selves of this fact, and they will also observe a remarkable
colossal figure of a beetle in greenish-coloured granite.
Figures of beetles cut in green-coloured stone ocour fre-
quently in the ancient tombs of Egypt. They are generally
plain; but some have hieroglyphic figures cut on their
backs, and others have been found with human heads. The
Egyptian beetle is about the size of the common beetle, and
its general colour is also black; it is chiefly distinguished
by having a broad white band upon the anterior margin of
ita oval corselet *.”

The word rendered “beetle” in Leviticus xi., in all pro-
bability referred to one of the locust family, as the de-
seription of those insects which alone were to be eaten, is
much more applicable to that tribe of insects than to beetles,
few of which have the power of leaping.

* Pictorial Bible.