Dr. Blumenbach's Observations 
These sacred birds, it is well known, were usually, after hav- 
jng been swathed round with cotton bandages, placed m 
earthen urns, and deposited in the catacombs appropriated to 
the Ibises. Sometimes, without being stuck into an urn, they 
were prepared in the form of a puppet, yet so that the head and 
bill projected at the top ; one of this sort has been figured y 
Count Caylus. And thirdly, the whole bird was frequent y 
wrapped up in this puppet form, and dressed in a mask, like 
one of the human species. 
But as the two others, viz. Dr. Garthshore's and t le 
Sloanian, were externally perfectly similar to the above- 
mentioned, I am led to conjecture (for in the total wdht of 
information from the ancients concerning these small mum- 
mies, we must however fix upon some conjecture), that the 
manufacturers of mummies, who made them for sale in order 
to save themselves the trouble of preparing a bird, took a bone, 
or other solid part of a decayed mummy, or indeed any thing 
that was nearest at hand, dressed it up as the mummy of an 
Ibis, and tendered it for sale. 
Whoever recollects what a despicable set the Egyptian 
priests were, even in the time of Strabo, and how the whole 
religious worship of the Egyptians was then already fallen into 
decay, will not think this conjecture too gratuitous, or void of 
Or shall we rather consider these puppets as the memento 
mori which it is well known the Egyptians were wont to in- 
troduce at table in their meals and festivals. Herodotus 
says, that little wooden images were usually carried about or 
this purpose, and I do actually recollect having seen such 
small wooden representations of mummies in the British Mu- 
