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Βουτοῦν: this is not the Buto mentioned in cc. 59, 63 (which was in the North-west Delta). It is doubtfully identified with Amt, near Tanis, in the North-east Delta (E. E. F. v. 37, for 1888); here Uto (Uat) was certainly worshipped. But Sourdille (E. p. 76 seq.) argues ingeniously that the words here show Buto was outside the Delta (in ‘Arabia’) and off H.'s main route. He thinks that H. conceives the serpents as coming from the south, and turning west, through ‘a pass’ (ἐσβολή), along the line of the canal described in 158. 2-3. Hence he places Buto somewhere near the Bitter Lakes. The ‘great plain’ of § 2 then is that north of the Wadi Tumîlât (158. 2 n.). πτερωτῶν. The ‘winged snakes’ are mentioned again in iii. 107 as guarding the frankincense trees; cf. for the belief in them, Isaiah xxx. 6, where ‘the viper and the fiery flying serpent’ are mentioned among the terrors of the ‘land of trouble and anguish’ to the south. Probably the snakes are a reality; Strabo says the region near the Bitter Lakes was full of serpents, which lay hid in the sand; but their ‘wings’ are a mere traveller's tale. Sayce supposes that H. is trying ‘to give probability and local colouring by telling the tale in the first person; he compares the valley of the roc in the Arabian Nights. But H. simply says that he saw a number of snake bones piled up, the rest of the story is what he was told. Other explanations are (1) that of Brugsch, that ‘locusts’ are meant. The ibis certainly kills locusts; but in no other point does the explanation fit H.'s statements. (2) The story is supposed to have a mythological origin. The goddess of Buto was represented as a snake with hood inflated and with wings; but the representation is certainly not that of a ‘watersnake’ nor are its wings ‘like those of bats’ (76. 3). (3) Sourdille (E. p. 75) suggests that the tree-lizard of the East, which has a collar which it expands, was once found in the region east of Egypt, and may be the ‘winged snake’.
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