OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. 147 



Testimony of the Monuments. 



The testimony afforded by mummies is corrob- 

 orated by that of the monuments; by the paintings, 

 sculptures and bas-reliefs which adorned the temples 

 and tombs of the Pharaohs. Thanks to the re- 

 searches of Nott, Broca and others, we are now able 

 to assert positively that the greyhound and the 

 terrier of the days of Rameses II., and even of an 

 earlier date, were the same in form and appearance 

 as they are at present, and that, consequently, they 

 have suffered no perceptible change during the last 

 four thousand or more years. 1 



And what holds good for the dog holds good also 

 for other animals which are represented on the 

 monuments of the Nile valley. " I have," says 

 Cuvier, " examined with care the figures of animals 

 and of birds engraved on the numerous obelisks 

 brought from Egypt to ancient Rome. In their 

 ensemble, which alone was the object of special atten- 

 tion on the part of the artists, these figures bear a 

 perfect resemblance to species now in existence. 

 Anyone may examine the copies of them given by 

 Kircher and Zoega. Without preserving the defini- 



1 There is in Egypt an indigenous type of dog, the p arias, 

 formerly in a domestic, now in a semi-wild state, which can 

 claim a much greater antiquity than the greyhound or the 

 terrier. It is the image of this dog that constitutes the sole and 

 invariable sign for the word " dog " in all hieroglyphical inscrip- 

 tions, even the most ancient. This dog, there is reason to 

 believe, existed in a domestic state as early as the time of Mena, 

 of the first dynasty, a date which, according to Brugsch, would 

 carry us back over an interval of more than six thousand years. 

 And yet, despite all the vicissitudes through which they have 

 passed, the parias of to-day, so far as observation can discern, 

 are exactly what they were in the days of Egypt's first ruler. 



