150 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XIV. 



in the valley of the Nile, a little to the south of the 

 entrance to the modern province of the Fyoom. 

 It was " reputed sacred to Lucina and Latona." 



The principal cause of the respect paid to this 

 animal was supposed to be its hostility to the cro- 

 codile, an animal held in great abhorrence by the 

 people of Heracleopolis. It destroyed its eggs, 

 and some believed that it attacked the crocodile 

 itself Diodorus* affirms that it broke the eggs 

 of the crocodile, not for the sake of foodt, but 

 from a benevolent motive towards mankind, whose 

 welfare it sought to promote by killing the off- 

 spring of that odious animal. But this idea pro- 

 bably arose from its having been observed not to 

 eat the young, when of a large size and ready to 

 leave the egg, preferring, as no doubt it did, with 

 the taste of an epicure, a fresh-laid egg^ or at least 

 one which had not so far undergone a change as to 

 contain within it the hard and scaly substance of a 

 full-formed crocodile. 



Were it not, adds the historian, for the service 

 it thus renders to the country, the river would 

 become unapproachable, from the multitude of cro- 

 codiles ; and it even kills them when full-grown, 

 by means of a wonderful and almost incredible 

 contrivance. Covering itself with a coat of mud, 

 the Ichneumon watches the moment when the cro- 

 codile, coming put of the river, sleeps (as is its 

 custom) upon a sand-bank, with its open mouth 

 (turned towards the wind), and adroitly gliding 



* Dioilor. i. 87. f Diodor. i. 35. 



