Note 62 — JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST. (continued 5)

Multitudes of words are retained in our language derived from very ancient dialects, and possibly the name “clock,” as given to this beetle, conveying no meaning to our present comprehensions, is a corruption of some syllable in former use. Its subterranean residence might have been signified by the old word “cloax,” a vault, a creature from below. Or, burrowing in filth and ordure, as it does, the epithet “clocca,” the offspring of a common shore, or jakes, would not have been insignificant of its origin and habits. Fancy, too, playing with trifles, amuses itself in bandying about even its more general appellative, dorr. In old times a “dorr” was a stupid, blundering fellow; and “to dorr,” was to din, or trouble with noise, both meanings applicable to the heedless flight, and loud noise, made in all the transits of this dung beetle.