In very many inscriptions the constellation which, as I have stated, represents the hippopotamus, is really represented as a crocodile, or as a crocodile resting on the shoulders of a hippopotamus, so that there is no doubt that the crocodile and the hippopotamus were variants; and we can quite understand, further, that the hippopotamus must have been brought into Egypt by a tribe with that totem, who must have come from a very long way up the Nile, since the hippopotamus was never indigenous in the lower reaches of the river; so that we have in the myth to do with a hippopotamus-worshipping tribe, which, for that reason, probably came from a region very far to the south. There is evidence of local tribes in Egypt among which the crocodile was sacred. [Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM A THEBAN TOMB, SHOWING THE ASSOCIATION OF THE CROCODILE AND HIPPOPOTAMUS, AND HORUS SLAYING THE CROCODILE, AND THE CONSTELLATION OF THE THIGH.] The astronomical explanation of this myth is, I think, very clear. The inscriptions relating to one of the very earliest of the illustrations refers to Horus, "the great god, the light of the heavens, the lord of Edfû, _the bright ray which appears on the horizon_." The myth, therefore, I take it, simply means that _the rising sun destroys the circumpolar stars_. These stars are represented in the earliest forms of the myth either by the crocodile or the hippopotamus; of course they disappeared (or were killed) at sunrise. Horus, the bright ray on the horizon, is victorious by destroying the crocodile and the hippopotamus, which represent the powers of darkness. [Illustration: HORUS AND CROCODILES.] This is a general statement. I should not make it if I could not go a little further. There is an astronomical test of its validity, to which I must call attention. The effect of precession is extremely striking on the constellations near the pole, for the reason that the pole is constantly changing, and the changes in the apparent position of the stars there soon become very obvious. The stars in Draco were circumpolar, and could, therefore, have been destroyed (or rendered invisible), as the hippopotami were destroyed in the myth by the rising sun, about 5000 years B.C.; and be it noted that at that time there was only one star in the Great Bear (or the Thigh) which was circumpolar. But at 2000 years B.C. the stars in Ursa Major were the circumpolar ones, and the chief stars in the constellation Draco, which formed the ancient constellation of the Hippopotamus, rose and set; so that, if there is anything at all in the explanation of the myth which I have given, and if there is anything at all in the idea that the myth is very ancient and refers to the time when the constellation of the Hippopotamus was really circumpolar--a time 7000 years ago--we ought to find that as the myth existed in more recent times, we should no longer be dealing with Draco or the Hippopotamus, because Draco was no longer circumpolar.