A common symbol of the Creator among the Hindoos (from whom it passed into Egypt, and thence into Scandinavia, says Bjornstjerna) was the _Scarabæus (Ateuchus) sacer_, commonly called the Sacred-beetle of the Egyptians.[50] Of this insect we next treat at length. Of the many animals worshiped by the ancient Egyptians, one of the most celebrated, perhaps, is the insect commonly known as the Sacred-scarab--_Scarabæus sacer_. This name was given it by Linnæus, but later writers know it as the _Ateuchus sacer_.[51] The insect is found throughout all Egypt, in the southern part of Europe,[52] in China, the East Indies, in Barbary, and at the Cape of Good Hope.[53] The _Ateuchus sacer_, however, is not the only insect that was regarded as an object of veneration by the Egyptians; but another species of the same genus, lately discovered in the Sennâri by M. Caillaud de Nantes, appears to have first fixed the attention of this people, in consequence of its more brilliant colors, and of the country in which it was found, which, it is supposed, was their first sojourn.[54] This species, which Cuvier has named _Ateuchus Ægyptorum_, is green, with a golden tint, while the first is black.[55] The _Buprestis_ and _Cantharus_, or _Copris_, were also held in high repute by the Egyptians, and used as synonymous emblems of the same deities as the Scarabæus. This is further confirmed by the fact of S. Passalacqua having found a species of Buprestis embalmed in a tomb at Thebes.[56] But the _Scarabæus_, or _Ateuchus sacer_, is the beetle most commonly represented, and the type of the whole class; and the one referred to in this article under the general name of _Scarabæus_, unless when otherwise particularly mentioned. The Scarabæus, according to the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, was sacred to the Sun and to Pthah, the personification of the creative power of the Deity; and it was adopted as an emblem or symbol of-- 1. The World.--According to P. Valerianus, the Scarab was symbolical of the world, on account of the globular form of its pellets of dung, and from an odd notion that they were rolled from sunrise to sunset.[57]