234 PYRAMIDS OF SACCARA. 
destroyed as were the Greeks and Romans. It 
would have been well if this writer had explained 
what particular bird he alluded to under this 
appellation; becaase it is believed that the bird 
antiently called Ibis is become very rare in 
Turkey. The Egyptians, says Paiiw ', instead 
of being the inventors of a superstitious 
reverence for the stork and the Ibis, brought this 
with them from JEthiopia ; together with the 
worship of the cat, the iveasel, the ichneumon, the 
sparroiv-hawk, the vulture, and the screech-oiul ; a 
worship founded on the utility of these animals. 
" It was absolutely necessary," says he "-, *' to 
put them under the protection of the law, 
otherwise the country would have been altoge- 
ther uninhabitable.' The Mahomjnedans, accord- 
ing to Shaiv^, have the stork^ in the highest 
esteem and veneration : it is as sacred among 
them as the Ibis was among the Egyptians; and 
no less profane would that person be accounted, 
Avho should attempt to kill, nay, even to hurt 
(1) Philosophical Dissertations on the Egyptians and Chinese^ 
voi. II. p. 100. Lond. 1795. 
(2) Ibid. 
(V^ Travels, p. 410. Lond. 1757. 
(4) " Leldeli, or I.egh'g, is the name that is commonly used by the 
Arahian autiiors, although Bel-arje ])rcvails all over Barbary, 
liachart {Ilicrog. lib. ii. cap. 29.) suppo?eth it to be the same with 
the Kasida of the Scriptures." Jbld. Note 6. 
