Note (return) — Introductory material

The Egyptians revere the beetle as a living and breathing image of the sun, quoth Porphyry.5 That will account for this restless delver's extraordinary talismanic renown. I think the lady-bird is "the speckled beetle" which was flung in hot water to avert storms.6 Pignorius gives us the figure of the beetle, crowned with the sun, and encircled with the serpent of eternity; while another, an onyx in the collection of Abraham Gorlæus, threatens to gnaw at a thunderbolt.7