CROCODILE WORSHIP, AND CATCHING 331 
The Phagrus had the distinction of being venerated in 
Egypt and Greece, whose writers, bothered by none of our 
scientific hesitation, regarded him not as one of the Mormyri, 
but as the Eel. They scoffed alike at his deification and his 
devotees.! 
The Phagrus, and the Meoies, which is Wilkinson’s addition 
to the four other sacred fish, were probably the same under 
different names. Elian, indeed, states that the former, 
worshipped at Syene, was called the Motes by the people of 
Elephantine (quite close to Syene), and attributes its sanctity 
to its annual appearance always heralding the rise of the 
Nile,? a property of prescience transferred by Plutarch to the 
Meotes.3 
We know s0 little about the /ocus of the Lepidotus (Barbus 
bynnt) cult that Wilkinson’s assertion, “its worship extended 
over most parts of Egypt,’’ needs confirmatory data. 
The Crocodile, like the Lates, was worshipped here and there, 
but elsewhere keenly hunted. Of the first Thebes and Lake 
Meeris furnish types. Each place (according to Herodotus) 
harboured one crocodile in particular, very tame and tractable. 
They adorned his ears, as Antonina her Murena, “ with earrings 
of molten stone or gold, and put bracelets on his forepaws, 
giving him daily a set portion of bread, with a certain number of 
victims : when he dies, they embalm and bury him in a sacred 
place.”’ 5 
Of the various methods for catching the crocodile our 
author sets forth one which we all must agree as “‘ worthy of 
mention.”’ ‘‘ They bait a hook with a chine of pork, and let 
the meat be carried out into the middle of the stream, while 
the hunter on the bank holds a living pig which he belabours. 
The crocodile hears its cries and making for the sound en- 
counters the pork, which he instantly swallows down. The 
men on the shore haul and, when they have got him to land, 
the first thing the hunter does is to plaster his eyes with mud, 
1 Cf, Athenzus, VII. 55, for the jests of Antiphanes, etc. 
2N. H., X. 19. 
3 Op. cit., 7. 
4 Plato bears witness to the skill of the Egyptians in taming fish, and 
animals, even the shy wild gazelle. Polit, 532. : 
6 Herodotus, II. 69, 70. Rawlinson’s Trans. 
Z 
