It is to be hoped, that, in accordance with the spirit in favour of conservatism which is now abroad, some atten

Mr. URBAN,

tion will be paid to the preservation and care of the remains which I have noticed. Yours, &c. E. I. C.

Gray's Inn Place.

*HAVING lately unwrapped the mummy of an Egyptian Ibis (see figure 1), and obtained an unusually fine and perfect specimen of that bird, a short description of which appeared in the last volume of the Archæologia, I have been induced to collect some informa

tion on the subject, which, if you think it sufficiently interesting for your valuable Miscellany, is much at your service.

Herodotus mentions, that

"the number of beasts among the Egyptians is comparatively small; but all of them, both those which are wild and those which are domestic, are regarded as sacred.

"Their laws compel them to cherish animals. A certain number of men and women are appointed to this office, which is esteemed so honourable that it descends in succession from father to son. In the presence of these animals, the inhabitants of the cities perform their vows. They address themselves as suppliants to the Divinity, who is supposed to be represented by the animal in whose presence they are; they then cut off their children's hair, sometimes the whole of it, sometimes half, at other times only a third part; this they weigh against pieces of silver; as soon as the silver preponderates, they give it to the woman who keeps the beast; she in return feeds the beast with pieces of fish, which is their constant food. It is a capital offence to kill any one of these animals; to destroy one accidentally is punished by a fine,

From the similarity of some of the quotations and observations in the above paper, with those on the same subject in "The British Museum," Vol. II. of Egyptian Antiquities, just published, it is right to state, that the paper was written and in our possession before that volume was published.-ED.

GENT. MAG. VOL. VI.

determined by the priests; but whoever, however involuntarily, kills an Ibis, or a hawk, cannot by any means escape death."

Herodotus then notices the different places to which different animals, after having been salted, were removed for burial; and among them, "the Ibis to Hermopolis." In describing the animals of Egypt, the same ancient author says,

"They affirm that in the commencement of every spring, the winged serpents fly from Arabia towards Egypt, but that the Ibis meets and destroys them. The Arabians say that in acknowledgment of in great reverence, which is not contrathis service, the Egyptians hold the Ibis dicted by that people.

"One species of the Ibis is entirely black, its beak remarkably crooked, its legs as large as those of a crane, and in size it resembles the crex; this is the enemy of the serpents. The second species is the most common; these have the head and the whole of the neck naked, the plumage is white, except that on the head, the neck, the extremities of the wings and the tail, these are of a deep black colour, but the legs and the beak resemble in all respects those of the other species."

The information of Diodorus Siculus upon the subject of the animals of Egypt, is much to the same effect; but he gives more particulars of the process of embalming them. He says,

"When any of them die, they wrap it in fine linen; and with howling, beat upon their breasts, and so carry it forth to be salted; and then, after having anointed it with the oil of cedar and other things which give the body a fragrant smell, and preserve it a long time from putrefaction, they bury it in a secret place. He that wilfully kills any of these beasts is to suffer death; but if any kill a cat, or the bird Ibis, whether wilfully or otherwise, he is certainly dragged away to death by the multitude, and sometimes most cruelly, without any formal trial or judgment of law."

And that, "amongst the birds, the Ibis is serviceable for the destroying of snakes, locusts, and the palmerworm."

U

most usually found, but they have also been found in an upright position, similar to the human mummy. Count Caylus (Recueil d'Antiquités, vol. vi. pl. 11, fig. 1), gives a mummy Ibis, in which the bird was placed on its feet, with the head erect (fig. 3). He

says,

"It has been disposed and arranged as would have been done to the most eminent corpse in Egypt." "This mummy has never been opened, and has not undergone the least alteration; the beak of the bird and the head are not en

veloped in the bandages; they have been covered with bitumen, and furnished with linen threads. The beak is moveable, and only held to the head by these same threads; it is conceived that the embalmment could not have given it suf.. ficient consistence to hold it in its place; but it is most likely it has been thus arranged to avoid the danger of breaking, to which its natural projection necessarily exposed it."

Mr. Pettigrew has also engraved a similar upright specimen, with the head tied back to a forked stick, from Monumens Egyptiens, pl. LXI. fig. 3, published in folio at Rome in 1791.

My specimen belongs to the second species described by Herodotus, namely, having white plumage, with the extremities of the wings and tail black, described by Baron Cuvier in his "Animal Kingdom," as, Ibis Religiosa-as large as a hen, with white plumage, except the end of the wing quills, which are black. The last wing coverts have elongated and slender barbs of a black colour, with violet reflections, and thus cover the end of the wings and tail. The bill and feet are black, as well as all the naked part of the head and neck. The species is found throughout the whole extent of Africa." In a memoir on the

Ibis by Cuvier, first inserted in the Annals of the French Museum, and afterwards in his "Ossemens Fossiles," he says, "it is a bird of the genus Numenius, or curlew, of the subgenus Ibis. I have named it NuMENIUS IBIS, albus, capite et collo adulti nudis, remigium apicibus, rostro et pedibus nigris, remigibus secundariis elongatus nigro violaceis,"—and adds, "the black Ibis of the ancients is probably the bird known in Europe under the name of green curlew, or the Scolopax falcinellus of Linnæus; it also belongs to the genus of Curlew, and the subgenus of Ibis.”

Bruce was the first to discover in Ethiopia a bird which is there called Abou-Hannès (Father John), and on comparing it with the embalmed individuals, he discovered it to be the true black and white Ibis of the ancients, and the same as the Mengel, or AbouMengel (Father of the Sickle), of the Arabs. This fact has been fully confirmed in the Memoir before referred to by M. Cuvier, who inspected several mummies brought from the pits of Saccara, and also from Thebes, by Col. Grobert and M. Geoffroy. He states that travellers, before and after Bruce, appear to have all been in error, and that the learned have not been more fortunate in their conjectures than the travellers, and explains where and how they have erred. That in the mummies from Saccara, "the bones had experienced a kind of half combustion, and were without consistency; they broke on the least touch, and it was very difficult to procure one entire, still more to detach them, so as to form a skeleton." Those from Thebes were much better preserved; and M. Rousseau, the assistant of Cuvier, contrived, by sacrificing several specimens, to form an entire skeleton.

It has been a questio vexata, whether the Ibis does or does not destroy serpents. Cuvier says, in confirmation of Herodotus and Diodorus, "I believe that I have ascertained decidedly, that the bird-mummies were real serpent eaters; for I have found in one of their mummies the undigested remains of the skin and scales of serpents."

living, and more than once dissected the Ibis, wrote a natural and mythological history of the bird, in which he fully confirms Bruce's discovery of the true black and white Ibis of the ancients, but disagrees with Cuvier as to the food of these birds, and consequently, on the reason of the veneration of the Egyptians for them. He asserts that they eat only worms, fresh water shell fish, and other similar small animals; he never found any remains of serpents in those he opened, and considers the fact mentioned by the Baron as an isolated instance; and observes, that, according to Herodotus, before the Egyptians proceeded to embalm an Ibis, they removed the intestines; that he himself has found, in the interior of one of these mummies, no remains of viscera and soft parts, but a multitude of the larvæ or nymphæ of insects of different species. That mummies of serpents have been discovered in the grottoes of Thebes,† and that many of the mummies from the depositories in the plains of Saccara, contained under a general envelope, aggregations of different animals, whose debris alone were collected; to which Cuvier's reply is, "supposing there is no exception to this, all we can conclude is, that the Egyptians, as has before occurred to them and others, gave a false reason for an absurd worship."

Mr. Griffith, the translator and editor of Cuvier, observes that the organization of the bird seems ill adapted for killing snakes, and adduces several other arguments against what he calls the assertions of Herodotus respecting the supposed service rendered to Egypt by these birds in delivering it from serpents. Herodotus, however, made no assertions on the subject; he gave the account as an on dit of the Arabians, which was not contradicted by the Egyptians; and it is due to the venerable Father of History to say, that he rarely made positive assertions

The inside of my specimen was entirely void.

+ The Egyptians may have embalmed both snakes and crocodiles, with the same object with which they erected temples to Typhon, the evil principle, in order to de

on subjects which did not come within his personal knowledge; although, doubtless, both he and Diodorus were in several instances deceived by the wily priests of Egypt.

Mr. Griffith's opinion on the point is as follows:

"Its (the Ibis) constant presence at the epoch of that inundation which annually triumphs over all the sources of decay, and assures the fertility of the soil, must have appeared to the priests and persons at the head of Government admirably calculated to make an impression on the minds of the people, to lead them to suppose supernatural and secret relations between the movements of the

Nile, and the sojourn of these inoffensive birds, and to consider the latter as the cause of effects exclusively owing to the

overflow of the river."

This idea is ingenious, but we must doubt its correctness, so many varieties of animals having been found preserved in mummies as to give great authenticity to the account of Herodotus, seconded by the statements of Diodorus, that all the beasts of Egypt, both wild and domestic, were regarded as sacred, and we must look for some reason more generally applicable. The most plausible, in my opinion, which I have yet met with, is one mentioned by Diodorus: he says, "the priests have a private and secret account of these things in the history of the gods; but the common people give three reasons for what they do." One of these reasons is, that "the ancient Egyptians, being often defeated by the neighbouring nations, by reason of the disorder and confusion that was among them in drawing up their battalions, found out at last the way of carrying standards or ensigns before their several regiments; and therefore, they

painted the images of these beasts which now they adore, and fixed them at the head of a spear, which the officers carried before them, and by this means every man perfectly knew the regiment he belonged to; and it being that by the observation of this good order and discipline, they were often victorious, they ascribed their deliverance to these creatures; and, to make them a grateful return, it was ordained for a law, that none of these creatures, whose representations were formerly thus carried, should be killed, but religiously and carefully adored." 1 consider this as merely the most plausible reason, and I cannot but think that the true cause of the universal veneration for the brute creation among the Egyptians, is among those mysteries of that highly mysterious people which have never yet been fathomed, and probably never will, unless the more perfect knowledge of the hieroglyphic inscriptions shall admit us, among the initiated, to some of the secrets of the Egyptian priests.

To come to the latest authority on the subject, according to Mr. Pettigrew's valuable work on Mummies, the Ibis was consecrated to Thoth or Theuth, the Egyptian Mercury, the protector of the sciences; the inventor of writing, and of all the useful arts, and, in short, the organiser of human society. This bird on a perch constitutes the hieroglyphical name of Thoth. At Medinet Abou there is a temple especially dedicated to him, in which he is represented with the head of an Ibis.* W. H. ROSSER.

*Caylus, Recueil d'Antiquités, has given two human figures, each with the head of an Ibis.

author has recorded, that in this service he was preserved from assassination by Sir John Pettus, of Cheston Hall, Suffolk. On the 26th September, at Hereford, with the Lord Herbert, of Ragland, and divers others of the King's chieftains in those parts, he is next to be found attending there a council of war, summoned upon receipt of a message from Charles, after his defeat before Chester, desiring the