120 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 
people in their choice, as it is to comprehend why. the 
wisdom of parliament should enact that the Chiff-chaff be 
protected and not the Willow Wren (35 and 36 Victoria, 
chap. 78). 
Captain Shelley thinks the Kestrel was made sacred 
because it destroyed that great pest of Africa, the locust ; 
but then did it not destroy also the much-loved scarabeus, 
the most sacred of all the emblems of palmy Egypt? I 
believe, zf it was sacred, that it was chosen out of many for 
affecting the haunts of men, building its nest as it yearly 
does in the walls of the houses. Did we in England deify 
a bird as sacred to home and hearth, the Martin would be 
selected, or the Swallow, which always court the society of 
man. But the Kestrel was not the sacred emblem of Horus. 
That bird was probably the Lanner Falcon (Fakco aroeris of 
Wilkinson, vide “ The Ancient Egyptians,” V., p. 210), pour- 
trayed on the monuments with a dark moustache. Dr. 
Adams, it is true, treats of the bird of Horus as the Kestrel, 
but I am of opinion that all his remarks really apply to the 
Lanner (cf. Ibis, 1864, p. 11). 
With regard to the identification of the numberless birds 
on the’ monuments, it is a subject which has been never 
fully investigated. Before going through the few memo- 
randa which I made respecting it, I would draw attention 
to the statement in Murray’s guide book that the names are 
written under some of the animals, which ought to assist 
considerably in elucidating their species. 
In the Museum of Mariette Bey at Boulak, there is an 
undoubted portrait of two Red-breasted Geese, a species 
not given in Shelley’s “Birds of Egypt.”* They are half 
© The Red-breasted Goose has another and a far more recent claim 
to be called an Egyptian bird. The late Mr. Allen, while resident in 
Alexandria, obtained a specimen (not adult) which is now in Mr. 
Crichton’s possession. It is figured in Gould’s “‘ Birds of Great Britain.” 
