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his hind feet, he turns from east to west, and, turning himself towards the east, he imitates the motions of the world. Having thus rolled the ball, he puts it in the ground, and leaves it there twenty-eight days, which is the time that the moon passes through the signs of the zodiack, and during that time he hatches the little beetles in the ball; and the twenty-ninth day, which is the day of the conjunction of the moon with the sun, and the time productions are made in nature, this little animal rolls its ball into the water, where it opens, and the beetles get out. It is upon this account, some say, that it is made the emblem of birth and the symbol of fathers, because these insects have but one father, and no mother. They represent all the world, because of the ball which they form and turn round; and man, because there are none but male beetles. They are of several kinds, but those for which the Egyptians have the greatest veneration are such as have a head like a cat, accompanied with rays, which gives occasion to them to believe that these animals have some analogy to the sun; and the more because this insect has thirty little paws, made like fingers, which represent the thirty days that the sun makes each month in passing through the signs of the zodiack."

This description is so unique that little remains to be said. We need not remind our readers that it is rather a fanciful sketch, but the pictures and figures, of which we are promised photographs from the hitherto darkened tombs, by means of the new magnesium light, fully justify the poetical remarks we have quoted. In the burial-place of Ramesis VII, near Thebes was recently seen a gigantic scarabæus about three feet in height, standing erect on its huge hind legs, painted on the walls, while Ham, Noah's second son, the supposed founder of the kingdom, is drawing a red fluid, representing blood or life, from one of its fore legs (!), and is humbly prostrate during the operation. Here is the symbol of life-giving, which afterwards led to the animal's being worshipped as the source of existence. "I have frequently seen," says a friend, "huge figures of the beetle in the tombs of Egypt in the centre of an ark, having a god on either side as inferior attendants;" indeed, in later Egyptian times, so highly was this offensive insect admired that the honours of embalmment were bestowed upon it, and preserved specimens are to be seen at Thebes; whilst purely executed scarabæidæ upon rare stones are not unfrequently found in human mummy cases as having been buried with their owners. Like many of the other tribes of coleopterous insects, they possess extraordinary muscular power, and a large wine-glass recently placed over a living beetle soon found its way to the remote end of the table. The work of the insect is just that of an ordinary scavenger, subordinating its affection for its young to its work, and clearing away, in companies of several hundreds, camel or buffalo dung, and forming with the pellets a nidus for its eggs, as may be observed in this country with beetles of a less pretending character, but second cousins to our scarabæidean friend: standing on their fore-legs, their motto appears to be that which we earnestly recommend to our amateur friends in the study of natural history, "nil desperandum;" for the most untiring energy is displayed in rolling their dung-pellets, with their hind legs into a suitable locality for the preservation of their offspring. And another pretty lesson may indeed be learned from so humble a creature in another branch of "social science," namely, connubial harmony in a division of labour; for should a hill lie between the object of their search and their pellets, the male and female, like the burying-beetles, work together, forcing it up the incline every time it rolls to the bottom until the object is accomplished. The scarabæidæ form a very extensive group of the order Coleoptera, containing probably 3,000 species. The antennæ are more club-shaped than our cockchafer; the legs, like those of the mole crickets, are peculiarly suited to their work, representing ornamental trowels, the feet and tibia of the fore-legs more particularly. It is said that with this scanty supply of tools in the Egyptian desert the egg-ball is first made from a mixture of sand or clay and camel's dung, the rolling process occupying a whole day, with the object apparently of drying the material, the dung affording a banquet to the larvæ when hatched: this inference is based upon the fact of their leaving of work if the weather be cloudy, or at sunset, commencing with sunrise, which custom probably gave rise to the ancient idea of a symbol of the measure of time. A colossal scarabæus, sacred to the deity Tore, or Cheper, and at a later period, the emblem of the world, forming part of the Elgin collection from Constantinople, may be seen amongst the Egyptian antiquities at the British Museum.

In a recent communication to the British Meteorological Society, Mr. Glaisher stated, as a result of an elaborate inquiry, that our climate during the last hundred years had altered—that, in fact, the temperature of the year is two degrees warmer now than it was then; the temperature of the month of January has increased still more, and the winter months are all much warmer.—Overland Mail.

What is it that constitutes and makes man what he is? What is it but his power of language—that language giving him the means of recording his experience—making every generation somewhat wiser than its predecessor, more in accordance with the established order of the universe?—Huxley's Origin of Species.