EGYPT NEWBERRY 437 



scatter seed, we have only to await and gather the harvest. The 

 Greeks spoke of Egypt as the most fit place for the first generations 

 of men, for there, they said, food was always ready at hand, and it 

 took no labor to secure an abundant supply. But there can be no 

 doubt that the Egypt of to-day is a very different place from the 

 Egypt of pre-agricultural times. There has been a great but 

 gradual change in the physical condition of the whole country. In 

 the mortuary chapels of tombs of the Old and Middle Kingdoms, 

 as well as in many of the Empire, are scenes of papyrus swamps and 

 reed marshes; in these swamps and marshes are figured the animals 

 and birds that then frequented them. Among the animals are 

 the hippopotamus and the wdld boar, the crocodile, the ibis, and a 

 great variety of water fowl. These animals, and some of the birds, 

 have now disappeared from the region north of the First Cataract. 

 Only yery recently has the crocodile become extinct north of Aswan. 

 It w^as still occasionally seen in the Delta as late as the middle of the 

 eighteenth century, and it Avas fairly plentiful in Upper Egypt up 

 to the middle of the nineteenth century, but it is now rarely, if ever, 

 seen north of Wadi Haifa. It is the same with the hippopotamus. 

 In the twelfth century this mammal still frequented the Damietta 

 branch of the Nile, and two specimens were actually killed near 

 Damietta by an Italian surgeon in the year IGOO.^ In the Dongola 

 Province of Nubia it was very common at the beginning of last cen- 

 tury, and Burckhardt states that is was then a terrible plague there 

 on account of its voracity. In 1812 several hippopotami passed the 

 Second Catarac : and made their appearance at Wadi Haifa and 

 Derr, while one was actually seen at Darawi, a day's march north of 

 Aswan.'' The wild boar is apparently now extinct in Egypt, but 

 specimens were shot in the Delta and in the region of the Wadi 

 Natrun during last century. The ibis has gradually disappeared 

 from the Lower Nile Valley, where it was once so common. The last 

 specimen of this bird recorded in Egypt was shot in 1877 in Lake 

 Menzaleh. It is sometimes seen in Lower Nubia, but has now en- 

 tirely disappeared from Egypt proper. 



Much is known about the ancient fauna of the desert wadies from 

 the paintings and sculptured scenes in the tombs of the Old and 

 Middle Kingdoms and of the Empire. On the walls of many of 

 these tombs are depicted hunting scenes,* and among the wild animals 

 figured in them are the lion, leopard, Barbary sheep, wild ass, wild 

 ox, hartebeest, oryx, ibex, addax, dorcas gazelle, fallow deer, giraffe, 



2 Buffon's Hist, ^'at., Vol. XII, 17G4, p. 24. 

 " Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, 1819, p. 67. 



* For a characteristic hunting scene of the I'yramid Age see Borchardt, Grabdenkmal, 

 des Konigs Sahure ; for one of the Middle Kingdom, Newberry, El Bersheh I, Plate VII. 



20397—25 29 



