PAMPAS CAT.—Leopardus Pujéros. 
chiefly of the moderately sized rodents which inhabit the same country in great profusion, 
and it is by no means so dangerous a foe to poultry as the ocelots or the chati. 
The length of the animal, inclusive of the tail, is rather more than three feet, the tail 
occupying about eleven inches. Its height, when adult, is rather more than a foot. 
Exceptine for a certain upright and watchful carriage of the ears, the EayprraAn Cat 
has a very domestic look about it. 
This animal is supposed to be the species which was so honoured by the ancient 
Evyptians, that they refused to attack an invading army which bore a number of Cats in 
their front rank ; and even when their land was in possession of the hostile force, the 
people rose like one man, and demanded the life of a soldier who had killed one of these 
sacred animals. So deeply were these ideas implanted in their minds, and so determinately 
did they persist in their demand, that the invading general yielded to their religious 
mthusiasm, and actually delivered the unwitting offender into their hands. 
The Egyptian Cat was not only honoured and protected during its lifetime, but even 
ufter death it received funeral honours such as only fall to the lot of distinguished or 
vealthy personages. 
There were several methods of embalming in use among the Egyptians, by which the 
bodies of the dead were, for a time, withheld from the natural and. beneficial process of 
decay, only to yield to its power a few hundred years later. Of these modes, only the 
most elaborate has left its records on the still existing bodies of the mighty dead. The 
carcass of the plebeian might be drenched and soaked in the antiseptic mixture, and so 
be preserved for a time. But it was the privilege for kings and rulers alone to have their 
bodies imbued with costly drugs and sweet spices, and to lie unchanged in their tombs 
for thousands of years, until their mummied remains were removed from their long 
repose, and exhibited to the public gaze of a people who, in their own royal time, were 
but a race of naked savages. The privilege which was denied to the workman was 
granted to his Cat, and we have in this country many specimens of mummied Cats, their 
bodies swathed, bandaged, and spiced in the most careful manner, partaking of this tem- 
porary immortality with a Rameses or a Pharaoh. 
