The Giza Zoological Gardens.



273



the night birds wake and the day birds settle to sleep is over,

quiet among the wild birds reigns once more, and another

pleasant memory of nature is stored up in one’s mind.


One is accustomed to think of the ancient Egyptians in

the light of almost prehistoric creatures, and to marvel at the

greatness of their civilisation, considering its antiquity; but,

great as that may be, it helps us, I think, to realize how com¬

paratively modern a product man is ; for here mummified by

them or portrayed in their paintings are the identical species that

we find living or migrating through the country to this day, and

having apparently hardly changed at all during the 6,000 or 7,000

3^ears that divide us from the Pharaohs.


Quail regularly pass through Egypt and are caught in

thousands as in the days of the children of Israel, and the Conies

(. Hyrax ) still inhabit the rocky hillsides. Nature still goes on,

ever conservative yet nevertheless slowly evolving towards per¬

fection ; and probably in another 6,000 years, when a future race

will visit the Nile and will point to the great dam at Assouan as

a mark of the great civilisation at that period of the world’s

history when the British Empire was at its zenith—that race will

still find the Eagle Owl and Lanner Falcon nesting on the

Pyramids; Bee-eaters and Nightingales will still break their

journey—as now—near Giza, and yet man marvels at the antiquity

of his own works which are as nothing compared with the

antiquity of Nature’s evolving species.


However, I have digressed, but the idea is perhaps worth a

passing thought, and I would suggest that a series of living

examples of the species mummified in former ages, would add a

further attraction to these already delightful Gardens, which no

visitor to Egypt should miss.



