Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/832

812 and even Thebes, and most of the Egyptian museums possess more or less well preserved specimens of them. One of these mummies was recently opened and drawn by Herr Beckmann, a German (Fig. 4). It was a small harrier, about eighteen months old. There is hardly anything left of it but the bones and the skin, and a few bits of muscular tissue between the teeth, reduced to dust. It had been wrapped in a wide band of coarse cloth glued to the skin by a thick layer of bitumen. Over this envelope they had applied a thin mat of dried reed-stems like those which are found on many human mummies of the twentieth dynasty and later, fastened by a long cord of braided grass. The animal, thus bundled up, presented the appearance of a cylindrical mass, or of a veritable basket of game, with both ends left open. A decent shape had to be given to this queer-looking package. A network of fine cloth was thrown over the part which answered to the body, so arranged as to design parallel rows of superposed squares along its length; a kind of ornament which is found on many mummies of small animals, as of the cat, ichneumons, the ibis, and the hawk. According to usage, the head was covered with a pasteboard mask, in which the physiognomy of the animal was reproduced as far as possible. It was painted a dark brown, except around the eyes, the lips, and the nostrils, which were white. The half-opened mouth showed the points of the teeth, and the ears rose above the head.

It is to be regretted that objects of this kind have been hitherto so little studied. A small number of species of dogs have been identified from the ancient paintings, but the different naturalists who have occupied themselves with researches of this sort