[453] Oriental Memoirs, i. 362.
[454] Morning Herald, Dec. 31st, 1814.
[455] The ship here alluded to was the Albion, which was in such a condition from the attack of insects, supposed to be white ants, that, had not the ship been firmly lashed together, it was thought she would have foundered on her voyage home.—The late Mr. Kittoe informed me that the Droguers or Draguers, a kind of lighter employed in the West Indies in collecting the sugar, sometimes so swarm with ants, of the common kind, that they have no other way of getting rid of these troublesome insects than by sinking the vessel in shallow water.
[456] Luke x. 19.
[457] Sparrman's Voyage, i. 367.
[458] The Coprion, Cantharus, and Heliocantharus of the ancients was evidently this beetle, or one nearly related to it, which is described as rolling backwards large masses of dung, and attracted such general attention as to give rise to the proverb Cantharus pilulam. It should seem from the name, derived from a word signifying an ass, that the Grecian beetle made 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, who afterwards orders his companion to give him another kind of bread made of asses' dung.
[459] Plate [XXII.] Fig. 4, 5.
[460] See Latr. Gen. i. 275.
[461] This property in the carrion insects may be turned to a good account by the comparative anatomist, who has only to flay the body of one of the smaller animals, anoint it with honey, and bury it in an ant-hill; and in a short time he will obtain a perfect skeleton, denudated of every fibril of muscle, though with the ligaments and cartilages untouched.
[462] Gleditsch, Abhandlungen, iii. 200.