CHAP. XIV. RAT, PORCUPINE, HARE. 1^5 



towns. Two species of jerboa inhabit the country. 

 They are the same which PHny and .^lian * men- 

 tion as "mice walking on two legs," "using," as 

 the latter observes, " their fore feet for hands," 

 and " leaping, when pursued, upon their hind legs." 



Those with bristles, Hke the hedgehog, de- 

 scribed by Pliny t, are still common in Egypt, 

 principally in the desert, where their abode is 

 among stones and fallen rocks. 



The mummies of mice and rats are said to have 

 been found in the tombs of Thebes. 



The rat is figured in the paintings among the 

 animals of Egypt ; and at Beni Hassan it is very 

 consistently placed near its natural enemy, the cat. 

 The number of these destructive animals in some 

 parts of Egypt is beyond belief. The fields, the 

 banks of the river, and the boats themselves, swarm 

 with rats, frequently of immense size ; and even 

 in the deserts, I have occasionally found a small 

 kind, which Nature enables to live, though far re- 

 moved beyond the reach of water, and apparently 

 with very little means of subsistence. 



The porcupine is also represented in the Egyp- 

 tian paintings among the wild animals of the 

 desert. But it does not appear whether, like the 

 modern Italians and others, the ancient Egyptians 

 ate its flesh ; and there is no evidence of its 

 having been sacred, or even kept by them, and 

 embalmed after death. 



* ^lian, XV. 26. 



■f- Plin. X, 65. " iEgyptiis muribus durus pilus,, sicut herinaceis. 

 lidem bipedes ambulant." Those which walk on two legs should be 

 distinct from the bristly-haired mice. 



