By the help of Horapollo, Chiflet's gnostic gems, and other repertories
of the same class, one might, peradventure, make a tolerable case in
favour of the mythological identity of the legend of Ladybird--that is,
the _sun-chafer_, or _barn-bie_, the _fire-fly_, "whose house is burnt,
and whose bairns are ten," of course the first ten days of the Egyptian
year[4]--with the mystical stories of the said black or dark blue lords
of radiance, _Pân_ and _Papân_.

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]

Reuven's book on the Egyptian Museum, which I have not seen, notices an
invocation to "the winged beetle, the monarch ([Greek: tyrannos]) of
mid-heaven," concluding with a devout wish that some poor creature "may
be dashed to pieces."

Can any of your readers inform me what is meant by "the blood of the
_Phuôn_?"

Yours truly,

?

St. Martin's, Guernsey, Jan. 9. 1850.