CHAP. XIV. SACRED HAWK. ^09 



These sacred birds were maintained at the public 

 expense. Every possible care was taken of them, 

 by certain persons especially* entrusted with that 

 honourable duty, who, calling them with a loud 

 voice, held out pieces of meat cut up into small 

 pieces for the purpose, until they came to take 

 them. And whenever, like the curators of the other 

 sacred animals, they travelled through the coun- 

 try to collect charitable donations for their main- 

 tenance, the universal veneration paid to the hawks 

 was shown by the zeal with which all persons con- 

 tributed.! 



A hawk with a human head was the emblem of 

 the human soul, the baieth of Horapollo. The 

 Goddess Athor was sometimes figured under this 

 form, with the globe and horns of her usual head- 

 dress* Hawks were also represented with the head 

 of a ram. 



Several species of hawks are natives of Egypt, 

 and it is difficult to decide which was really the 

 sacred bird. But it appears that the same kind 

 was chosen as the emblem of all the different Gods 

 above mentioned, the only one introduced into the 

 sculptures besides the sacred hawk being the small 

 sparrow-hawk t, or Falco tenunculoides, which oc- 

 curs in certain mysterious subjects connected with 

 the dead, in the tombs of the Kings. The sacred 

 hawk had a particular mark under the eye, which, 

 by their conventional mode of representing it, is 



* Diodor. i. 83. f Vide supra, p. 92. 



J The origin of this inconsistent name may be a corruption of sper- 

 viero, epervier, " a hawk ; " or, as Johnson supposes, of the Saxon 

 spearhawoc. 



VOL. II. —Second Series. P 



