82 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



Even the white bear had been seen in Egypt 

 while under the Ptolemies.* 



Lions and panthers were quite common at Rome, 

 where they were presented by hundreds in the 

 games of the circus. Even tigers had been seen 

 there, together with the striped hyena, and the ni- 

 lotic crocodile. There are still preserved in Rome 

 some ancient mosaic, or tesselated pavements, con- 

 taining excellent delineations of the rarest of these 

 animals ; among which a striped hyena is very per- 

 fectly represented in a fragment of mosaic in the 

 Vatican museum. While I was at Rome, a tesse- 

 lated pavement, composed of natural stones, ar- 

 ranged in the Florentine manner, was discovered 

 in a garden beside the triumphal arch of Galienus, 

 which represented four Bengal tigers in a mo&t 

 admirable manner. 



The museum of the Vatican has the figure of 

 a crocodile in basalt, almost perfectly represented, 

 except that it has one claw too many on the hind 

 feet. Augustus at one time presented thirty-six of 

 these animals to the view of the people.t 



It is hardly to be doubted that the hippotigris was 

 the zebra, which is now only found in the southern 



* Athenais, lib. V. Dion. lib. LV. 



