CHAP. XIV. 



THE FROG. 247 



properly ranks them among reptiles particularly 

 destructive to man. 



They are called by the Arabs Hye bil Koroon, or 

 the horned snake; Cerastes by Pliny; and Vipera, 

 or Coluber, cerastes by LinnaLnis. 



There is no evidence from the sculptures of their 

 having been sacred to the God of Thebes; and 

 Diodorus thinks the hawk was esteemed from its 

 hostility to these as well as other noxious reptiles. 

 They were, however, honoured with sepulture 

 there, as the father of history tells us ; and, on his 

 authority, I have ranked them among the sacred 

 animals of Egypt. 



The Frog. 



The frog was an emblem of man in embryo, as 

 we are informed by Horapollo.* This is confirmed 

 by the sculptures, where it is represented bearing 

 upon its back a palm branch t, the symbol of a year, 

 as the commencement of human life. There are 

 also a frog-headed God and Goddess 1: ; the former, 

 probably, a form of Pthah, the Creative Power, 

 though in some inferior capacity. The importance 

 attached to the frog, in some parts of Egypt, is 

 shown by its having been embalmed and honoured 

 with sepulture in the tombs of Thebes. 



* HorapoUOji. 25. Vide Diodor. i. 10. ; and ^lian, ii. 5G., who " was 

 once cauglit in a shower of rai)i mixed with imperfect frogs, near Naples, 

 on his way to Dicaearchia," He was an eyewitness of it ; but, as 

 Gibbon says of Abu Rafe, " who will be witness for " ^lian ? Vide 

 also ^lian, vi. 41., of Mice. 



f Vide infra, p. 269. J Plate 25. parts 3 and 4. 



R 4 



