Birds by the Wayside 389 



distant date should depict that special Goose. That he did 

 see the bird, and with fidelity drew it, are facts, and one can 

 only conclude that zoological collections are no new thing, 

 but that men nearly six thousand years ago, must have kept 

 rare birds in captivity for the pleasure of their beauty, and 

 that artists went to their zoological gardens or collections, 

 and drew pictures of the inhabitants of far distant climes 

 for the walls of their temples and tombs." 



This picture does not furnish the sum total of evidence of 

 the ancient Egyptian's interest in natural history -collections. 

 There is left amidst the ruins of Karnak the lower portion 

 of the walls of a chamber, on which are sculptured in low 

 relief representations of the fauna and flora of the countries 

 of Asia invaded by Thothmes III. The carved similitudes 

 of birds, animals, plants, shrubs, and trees are sufficiently 

 accurate for identification by those familiar with the objects 

 themselves. Sometimes on a panel is a portrait in stone of 

 a tree, while on other panels of similar size are carved 

 life-sized representations of leaves and fruit, or leaves and 

 flowers. This is not one of the regular show places of the 

 temple, but an assistant dragoman assured me that he knew 

 "the garden of Thothmes III," and after the usual rounds 

 he guided me to it. After that I had an hour- beside the Sa- 

 cred Lake, where I found several species of shorebirds, Coots, 

 Ducks, and in the shrubbery Blue-throated Warblers, while 

 overhead were the Kestrels and Swallows. 



Another illustration is afforded us by the walls of the tem- 

 ple at Deir-el-Bahari, on which are portrayed scenes from 

 Queen Hatshepsu's expedition to Punt. Most exquisite is 

 the modeling of the captive Cranes that march in the pro- 

 cession of slaves and wild animals sent from the foreign 

 land. 



Egyptologists tell us that a bit of ornithological history is 

 set forth in a certain picture in the temple of Rameses HI 

 at Medinet Abu. They tell us that it represents a coronation 

 scene, that the king having assumed the double crown of the 

 Upper and the Lower Kingdom, a priest sets at liberty four 



