[454] So Zeus and bull, Artemis and bear, Aphrodite and dove, and many other examples. In such cases it is generally useless to try to discover a resemblance between the character of the god and that of the associated animal. There is simply, as a rule, a coalescence of cults, or an absorption of the earlier cult in the later.
[455] The particular conditions that induced this cult in Egypt escape us. See the works on Egyptian religion by Maspero, Wiedemann, Erman, Steindorff, and others.
[456] On the curious attitude of medieval Europe toward animals as legally responsible beings see E. P. Evans, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals.
[457] Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, chap. x. Two superhuman creators are said to have transformed themselves into lizards (ibid. p. 389 ff.).
[458] Batchelor, The Ainu, p. 35 ff.
[459] Matthews, Navaho Legends, pp. 80, 223; Dixon, The Northern Maidu, p. 263.
[460] Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 269; cf. article "Animals" in Hastings, Encyclopædia Of Religion and Ethics.
[461] See above, § 253, for the Egyptian cult.
[462] References to Stow's Native Races of South Africa and Merensky's Beiträge are given in Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, i, 522.
[463] Cushing, in The Century Magazine, 1883; Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii, 243 f.