LOCAL KNOWLEDGE IN ANIMALS 243 



l>ut in all the way the arm and hand are held, as well as 

 the attitude of the whole body, point to the light handling of 

 a grass-stalk. 



I know not whether the method of catching lizards in a 

 noose was also practised in Greece, or is so now. The close 

 relations between Italy and Greece, even if this were not the 

 case, would have sufficed to supply Praxiteles with the sub- 

 ject of his statue. 



Such practices can often be traced back to very ancient 

 times, and are inherited and maintained in subsequent ages 

 with very great persistence. A fresco in the Etruscan 

 Museum in the Vatican affords me another example of 

 this. It represents a boy holding a string attached to the 

 legs of a bird and allowing the bird to flutter, an act which 

 is still at the present day one of the commonest of the 

 cruelties to which animals- are daily subjected in Italy. 

 This amusement therefore has been practised by thoughtless 

 children, at least since the time of the Etruscan people, a 

 time reaching back into the darkness of an unknown 

 antiquity. 



To these reflections, made in my essay upon the variation 

 of the wall-lizard, I would add, in reference to the subject 

 here under consideration, that by the remark that such prac- 

 tices are inherited by posterity, I meant not inherited as an 

 instinct, but handed down. But any one who is acquainted 

 with the facts of Italian cruelty towards animals will agree 

 with me that the contempt and mercilessness with which 

 animals are treated, there, in the land which contains the 

 .seat of the head of Catholic Christendom, does in fact almost 

 convey the impression of an hereditary habit, as also does the 

 compassion towards animals among the Mohammedans, which 

 affords such a striking contrast. 



In the essay alluded to I have also insisted that lizards 

 are very stationary, i.e. that every li/ard confines its move- 



