THROUGH FAVOUR AND SUPERSTITION 237' 



since it is designed to protect all kinds of wild animal life, 

 promises to be that at Taradale in Ross and Cromarty, the 

 birthplace of Sir Roderick Murchison, where the grounds 

 have recently been bequeathed as part of the Murchison of 

 Taradale Memorial "to form a sanctuary or reserve for the 

 preservation of the wild life of the Highlands." 



PROTECTION THROUGH SUPERSTITION 



Since the earliest days of humanity, man has regarded 

 certain animals with particular veneration and such he has 

 spared and protected. The ancient Egyptians held sacred 

 the Crocodile, the Cat, the Ibis and other creatures, whose 

 bodies, even after death, they preserved and reverenced. 

 Many nations ha-ve raised animals to the level of gods, and 

 many religions have seen in the animal creation symbols of 

 their highest faith we think of the Lamb and the Fish, 

 symbolic to the early Christians of Christ Himself. Some 

 primitive peoples have, by identifying their tribes or their 

 families with particular animals in the cult of totemism, 

 created thereby a special protection for the totem animal, 

 for its blood became as their blood and its life their life, so 

 that on no occasion could it be slain, except as a sacrifice to 

 their god. Buddhism spares all living things, and partly as 

 a result, there are in India 40,000 deaths a year from snake- 

 bite. 



Religious symbolism of such a type, it is hardly necessary 

 to say, has had no place in later Scottish life, though the 

 animal symbols upon the early Christian monuments of the 

 northern and eastern counties hint at a time when it played 

 a part in Scottish history. Yet to-day there are many super- 

 stitions regarding animals, which still act as protectors of the 

 lower creatures. 



I have already mentioned, in passing, the legends that 

 have hallowed the Robin Redbreast his care for the bodies 

 of the dead, how 



Cov'ring with moss the dead's unclosed eye, 

 The little redbreast teacheth charitie. 



But more striking are the stories that account for his ruddy 

 breast : the story of his pitiful service on Calvary : 



