Mr. Pearson's Account of two Mummies, &c. 265 
araneus terrestris, but also with those of several of the smaller 
species of quadrupeds, and that the bones of different animals 
are not unfrequently contained within the same wrapper.* It 
is however confidently affirmed by different writers, that the 
more modern Egyptians have frequently included a single 
bone of some quadruped within the usual quantity of cloth, 
which they have artfully taken from some decayed mummy 
in the catacombs, and then fraudulently sold this sophisticated 
production as an ancient mummy. Hence, any general con- 
clusions founded on meeting with the bones of other quadru- 
peds, must be received with diffidence and suspicion/ -f- 
The mummies which are taken out of the catacombs of the 
birds at Saccara, and at Thebes, are included in earthen jars, 
closed with a cover of the same material. The cloth which 
envelopes the mummy is sometimes tolerably firm and perfect ; 
but, on removing this, we commonly meet with a quantity of 
dust, resembling powdered charcoal in its appearance, inter- 
mixed with the bones, or the fragments of bones, belonging to 
the creature which had been contained in it. The decomposition 
is often so complete, that no traces of the animal remain ; 
but, on other occasions, the intire collection of bones, with the 
bill of the bird, have been found in a condition sufficiently 
perfect to construct a skeleton with them. In the fourth 
volume of the Annales da Museum National d’Histoire naturelle , 
M. Cuvier has published an interesting memoir on the Ibis, 
with an engraving of the skeleton of that bird, which had 
been formed of the bones collected from the catacombs at 
Thebes. That able naturalist, af er comparing the ancient 
accounts of that celebrated bird with those of the moderns, 
f Phil. Trans. 1794, 
• Voyage en Egypte, Tome III. chap. viii. 
MDCCCV. M m 
