In Median mythology and art we have seen the great importance of Tauric symbolism: but there is a wide difference between the Tauric symbolism of the Medes and the Egyptians. Mithras, the Median sun-god, again and again triumphs over and slays the Bull. In Egypt, on the contrary, the Sacred Bull is honoured and worshipped during its lifetime, and reverently embalmed, and with all pomp and glory buried after its death. This difference in the mythologic conceptions of Media and Egypt may be attributed, I think, to the difference of climatic conditions in the two countries. In Media, spring--in Egypt, autumn--is the joyous and fruitful season of the year. In the early ages, when Median and Egyptian mythologies took their rise, Taurus was at the spring equinox in conjunction with the sun, and was, therefore, slain by its overwhelming brightness; but at the autumn equinox that same constellation, _in opposition_, rose when the sun set, and all night long was visible. In Median art, it is the Bull immolated by the sun in springtime that is represented. In Egyptian symbolism, it is to the Bull triumphantly traversing the sky by night, in the autumn season, that attention is directed. In the light of these astronomic considerations, it is interesting to think of the fanatical act of Cambyses in slaying the Apis Bull, as one prompted not only by fury at seeing the high honour paid to the Egyptian god, but also by an insane pride, which made him desire to imitate the triumph of Mithras--the Persian sun-god--over the Bull in the heavens, by killing its earthly representative, the Apis Bull. In the days of Cambyses, when Apis worship prevailed in Egypt, and even still earlier when the children of Israel, in imitation of this worship, set up the golden calf in the wilderness, the _raison d’être_ for the honour paid to Taurus as a star mark of the autumnal season no longer existed; for we know that about 1800 B.C., the equinoctial colure had left that constellation, and had entered the eastern degrees of the constellation Aries. Egyptian history assures us, however, that the institution of the Apis worship was effected by some king of the first dynasty in the far back ages when Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, and Aquarius did actually preside over the four seasons of the year. Moreover, the recent discoveries of the tombs of kings and other personages, in the first Egyptian dynasty, lead us back to the remote date of 4000 B.C., when the very earliest observations of the colures in the four above-named constellations could have been made.