graves dating from before 400 A.D. Until recently, the only scarab, indeed the only beetle, ever to appear on ancient coins was a sacred scarab and its dung ball. Only a few ancient Greek and Roman coins bear its likeness. Poland introduced a very attractive two Zlote coin in 1997 with a stag beetle, Lucanus cervus (L.), adorning it. During the Middle Ages, according to Reitter (1961), the ecclesiastical courts (as opposed to the civil courts) actually tried cases against pest animals (rats, mice, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and chafer larvae [Melolontha sp., Melolonthi- nae]) when they appeared in such large numbers so as to endanger harvests or affect the life and property of the community. The intention of the court was to make these animals desist from their actions that were causing or threatening loss. The proceedings consisted of prayers, exhortations, exorcisms, and the use of holy water. On the preliminary trial day a prosecutor would read the charges against the accused (representatives of whom were in court). The judge would thrice order them to leave the area with curses and maledictions, and the accused were then released. As one would expect, this had no affect. After three days, the second stage of the trial took place before the Bishop or his representative. The prosecution would demand that the sentence should be carried out inasmuch as the orders of the first court were disregarded by the accused. Consequently, a number of the accused were brought before the court and executed while the judge called down curses upon their relatives. In 1478, the Bishop of Lausanne (Switzerland) instituted proceedings against the white grub larvae of chafers that were causing devastation throughout the countryside (Reitter 1961). The larvae were declared excommunicate from the church pulpit by a lay preacher, whereupon the congregation was asked their support by saying three Ave Marias and three Paternosters. A more enlightened attitude regarding chafers developed later when Europeans began to consume both adults and larvae. Revenge was not a factor, but nutrition. As noted by Meyer-Rochow (1973), the absence of insects from European menus is fairly recent. It wasn’t just a lack of larger game animals that caused humans to eat insects. The fact that entomophagy was once so widespread in almost every culture (regardless of food or protein shortages) indicates there were other reasons to eat insects. It is doubtful that primi- tive humans ever felt an instinctive aversion to eating insects, and there is no evidence to suggest that there is anything basically repellent about insects. Insects were, and are, consumed because they have a high nutritive value and are abundant. The aversion to insects as food is a recently established custom and prejudice of western civilization (Bodenheimer 1951), although Cherry (personal communication, January 2006) rejects this and believes that cultures around the world simply abandon eating insects as their supply of meat and fish increases. Scarab beetles in Europe have been prepared in a variety of ways, although the abdomen and the thorax of adults were generally favored because the remaining parts were too chitinous; all except the head capsule of the larva was usable. Illiger (1804) presented recipes for preparing May beetles (Melolontha sp.), and as late as the end of the last century it was possible to find chafer bouillon in some of the finest French restaurants (Klausnitzer 1981). Erasmus Darwin (1800) advocated using both the adults and larvae of chafers as food. Westerman (1821) reported some mountain peoples of Europe eating chafers. Hope (1842) indicated chafers (Melolontha sp.) and Rhizotrogus pini (Olivier) (Melolonthinae) were consumed in Moldavia and Walachia. Holt (1885), in his remarkably 90 COLEOPTERISTS SOCIETY MONOGRAPH NUMBER 5, 2006