was the goddess Ta-urt, 'the great one,' the patroness
of pregnancy, who is never shown in any other form. Rarely this animal
appears as the emblem of the god Set.

The jackal haunted the cemeteries on the edge of the desert, and so
came to be taken as the guardian of the dead, and identified with
Anubis, the god of departing souls. Another aspect of the jackal was
as the maker of tracks in the desert; the jackal paths are the best
guides to practicable courses, avoiding the valleys and precipices, and
so the animal was known as Up-uat, 'the opener of ways,' who showed the
way for the dead across the western desert. Species of dogs seem to
have been held sacred and mummified on merely the general ground of
confusion with the jackal. The ichneumon and the shrewmouse were also
held sacred, though not identified with a human god.

The hawk was the principal sacred bird, and was identified with Horus
and Ra, the sun-god. It was mainly worshipped at Edfu and
Hierakonpolis. The souls of kings were supposed to fly up to heaven in
the form of hawks, perhaps due to the kingship originating in the hawk
district in Upper Egypt. Seker, the god of the dead, appears as a
mummified hawk, and on his boat {25} are many small hawks, perhaps the
souls of kings who have joined him. The mummy hawk is also Sopdu, the
god of the east.

The vulture was the emblem of maternity, as being supposed to care
especially for her young. Hence she is identified with Mut, the mother
goddess of Thebes. The queen-mothers have vulture head-dresses; the
vulture is shown hovering over kings to protect them, and a row of
spread-out vultures are figured on the roofs of the tomb passages to
protect the soul. The ibis was identified with Tahuti, the god of
Hermopolis. The goose is connected with Amon of Thebes. The swallow
was also sacred.

The crocodile was worshipped especially in the Fayum, where it
frequented the marshy levels of the great lake, and Strabo's
description of the feeding of the sacred crocodile there is familiar.
It was also worshipped at Onuphis; and at Nubti or Ombos it was
identified with Set, and held sacred. Beside the name of Sebek or
Soukhos in Fayum, it was there identified with Osiris as the western
god of the dead. The frog was an emblem of the goddess Heqt, but was
not worshipped.

The cobra serpent was sacred from the earliest times to the present
day. It was never identified with any of the great deities, but t