ISO RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



a painting taken from a tomb at Tiiebes, and now 

 in the British Museum, that the cat was taught by 

 the ancient Egyptians to retrieve.^ The painting in 

 question depicts an Egyptian fowler gliding in a 

 flat-bottomed boat through a reed bed, and throw- 

 ing sticks at waterfowl (apparently with as much 

 skill as a native Australian throws the boomerang), 

 while a cat is represented as looking up at him 

 with a wild duck in her mouth, and another bird, 

 apparently a water-hen, under her fore feet. In 

 the absence of any explanatory text, it looks as if 

 the cat were retrieving the birds knocked down by 

 her master ; but, on the other hand, it is more 

 likely that she was merely profiting by the oppor- 

 tunity to secure a meal for herself. Bearing in 

 mind the cat's natural antipathy to water, it is 

 difficult to believe that she could be induced to act 

 the part of a water-spaniel, or retriever. 



Neither the Cheeta nor the Caracal, both of 

 which are used in India, Persia, and Syria for 

 chasing and killing antelopes, hares, and the larger 

 game birds, have ever been taught to retrieve. 

 Having stalked and killed their prey, they 

 commence to eat it, and have to be recaptured by 

 their trainers, hooded, and led back to the bullock- 

 cart, on which they are brought to the field. I 

 have nowhere been able to find any description of 

 a trained cat ; although, in an Arabic treatise on 

 hunting, written in the tenth century, and a few 



1 Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, 

 vol. iii., p. 42. Paintings of this kind belong to the eighteenth 

 and nineteenth dynasties — 1660 to 1440 B.C. 



