AND LOWER EGYPT. l6l 



and by which it was belcved, as it rendered him 

 the service of entering his mouth, and eating the 

 leeches which fastened themselves to it * ; a 

 custom very different from the nature of the wren, 

 which never eats leeches ; and this peculiarity, 

 added to some other probabilites, gives us reason 

 to presume, with some appearance of truth, that 

 the trochilus of the ancients is the kln^'s-fisher. 



You discover again, in plate XXXIV, nearly 

 the same personages as in plate XXXII. The 

 one, that which is seated, is Isis, or Osiris ; for 

 it cannot be determined whether it is a man or a 

 woman. As a head-dress it has the disk of the 

 sun, and the crescent of the moon ; he holds, in 

 one hand, the cross with a handle, the than, and 

 in the other a sceptre surmounted with a section 

 of the fruit of the colocasia -j^, one of the plants 

 most in use for the food of the Egyptians. This 

 fruit was often placed on the summit of pillars, 

 to serve as a capital in Egyptian architecture. It 

 is unknown who is meant by the person present- 

 ing the two vases to the divinity ; it is, to all ap- 

 pearance, a priest. 



Two symbolical figures occupy plate XXXV. ; 

 but they are inexplicable, till the period come 



* See Herodotus on that part quoted in the preceding note; 

 Elian, lib. xii. cap. 1 5 ; Pliny, Aristotle, &c. &c. 

 f Arum cotocaua. Lin, 



VOL. III. M when 



