the Egyptian mythology, one of the names of Isis or the moon. The Egyptians bestowed different names on the sun, either to characterize its effects or its relations with respect to the earth; and they followed the same method respecting the moon. Charonem, a sacred writer of Egypt, leaves no doubt on this subject. "Every thing which is published of Osiris and Isis, all the sacerdotal fables, allude only to the phases of the moon and the course of the sun." Bubastis was one of the principal attributes of Isis. Theology first personified her, and then raised her to the rank of divinity, in whose honour a city of that name was built, as described by Herodotus (ii. 137, 138), and where the people, to the number of 700,000, collected annually from all parts of Egypt to celebrate her festival. The symbol of this deity was a cat, which the priests fed with sacred food; and when it died, its body was embalmed and carried in pomp to the tomb prepared for its reception. The ancients have explained this worship variously. The Greeks maintained that when Typhon declared war against the gods, Apollo transformed himself into a vulture, Mercury into an ibis, and Bubastis into a cat, and that the veneration of the people for the latter animal took its rise from that fable; but they ascribed their own ideas to the Egyptians, who thought very differently. However that may be, the cat was greatly honoured in Egypt; and on one occasion when a Roman soldier imprudently killed one, he was immediately put to death by the populace. In the language of the priests, Bubastis was deemed the daughter of Isis, and even represented her in certain circumstances. It is for this reason that the Greeks, who honoured the moon by the name of Artemis (Diana), bestowed it also on this Egyptian divinity. The Egyptians attributed to Bubastis the virtue of assisting pregnant women; while the Greeks and Latins, disciples of the Egyptians, ascribed the same power to Artemis (Diana). Among the numerous Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum there are several statues of Bubastis, whose hieroglyphic name is now known to be Pasit.