NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. 25 



eth out of the wall ; he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, 

 and of creeping things, and of fishes" from which has 

 been taken the beautiful description of him in " Heber'p 

 Palestine" 



" He, the sage, whose restless mind 

 Through Nature's mazes wander'd unconfined ; 

 Who every bird, and beast, and insect knew, 

 And spake of every plant that quaffeth dew." 



T think that, from the above passage of Proverbs, we may 

 infer that the dog had, by Solomon's time, arrived at many 

 varieties ; and are not the familiar uses of the dog likewise 

 shown forth in Isaiah, Ivi. 10, 11, and in the account of 

 Tobit's dog in the Apocrypha ? 



From sacred we may, however, turn to profane history. 

 The Egyptians have, from the very earliest ages, held the 

 dog in particular estimation ; and a French writer of much 

 ingenuity furnishes us with a very plausible reason for their 

 predilection. " The Egyptians," says M. Elzear Blaze, 

 " seeing in the horizon a superb star, which appeared al- 

 ways at the precise time when the overflowing of the Nile 

 commenced, gave to it the name of Sirius, [the Barker,] be- 

 cause it appeared to show itself expressly in order to warn 

 the laborer against the inundation. ' This Sirius is a god,' 

 said they ' the dog renders us service ; it is a god !' Its 

 appearance corresponding with the periodical overflow of the 

 Nile, the dog soon became regarded as the genius of the 

 river, and the people represented this genius, or god, with 

 the body of a man and the head of a dog. It had also a 

 genealogy ; it took the name of Anubis, son of Osiris ; its 

 image was placed at the entrance of the temple of Isis and 

 Osiris, and subsequently at the gate of all the temples of 

 Egypt. The dog being the symbol of vigilance, it was thus 

 intended to warn princes of their constant duty to watch 

 over the welfare of their people. The dog was worshipped 

 principally at Hermopolis the Great, [Chemnis or Ouchmon- 

 nein in modern Arabic,] and soon afterwards in all the towns 

 of Egypt. Juvenal writes : 



' Oppida tota canem (Anubim) venerantur ; nomo Dianam.' 

 [* Whole cities worship the dog, (Anubis ;) no one Diana.'] 



At a subsequent period, Cynopolis, the < City of the dog,' 

 [now Samallout,] was built in its honor, and there the priests 

 celebrated its festivals in great splendor." 



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