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THE MAMMALS OE EGYPT. 
attended by great difficulties, due largely to the very imperfect delineation of the 
characters of the animals depicted. In the present state of art, mammalian species can 
be so faithfully represented that it is at once possible to recognize and name the figures 
given of them; but no such claim can be advanced on behalf of the great mass of the 
representations of mammals which have been bequeathed to us by the ancient 
Egyptians. The identification of the genera is usually possible, but in those cases in 
which a genus is represented by a diversity of species, identification is little more than 
mere guesswork iu the great majority of instances. 
The chief sources of information respecting the Fauna of the country now under 
consideration are contained in that portion of the ‘ Description de I’Egypte ’ dealing 
with zoology, written by Etienne Geoffrey St.-Hilaire and Victor Audouin in the 
beginning of the 19th century, and in the ‘ Symbol® Physic®,’ written by Dr. C. 
G. Ehrenberg some few years later. 
So far as the Mammals are concerned, the first-mentioned work is limited to the 
species which occur in Egypt proper, the collectors having penetrated to the south 
only as far as the First Cataract, and thus no mention is made of the Cercopithecid®. 
On the other hand, the valuable treatise on the fauna observed by Drs. Hemprich 
and Ehrenberg during their travels in Egypt and the neighbouring countries in the 
beginning of the 19th century, and compiled with such masterly skill by the latter, the 
sole survivor after his return to Europe in 1826, has proved a real storehouse of 
information which 1 feel specially bound to acknowledge. 
Besides the material contained in these two works, a few observations relating to 
tlie Mammals of Egypt are to be found scattered through various books of travel; but 
when we proceed further south towards the confines of Abyssinia, Sennaar, and 
Kordofan, we have the records of several good naturalists, such as Dr. Edouard Ruppell 
and the Baron I'lieodor von Heuglin. 
With regard to the Cercopithecid®, Ehrenberg has stated his impression that a 
great many more kinds of monkeys had been ascribed to Ethiopia than had ever been 
noticed there, and that consequently the ancient Egyptians had been accredited with 
the worship of several kinds of monkeys. He pointed out, at the same time, that 
while the monuments of Egypt show that the Egyptians knew more than one kind of 
monkey, they just as clearly prove that these remarkable people never worshipped 
more than one species. 
In the representations on the monuments we find both sections of the Cercopithecid® 
portrayed, and not unfrequently in the same scene, and it is noticeable that the 
1 “ Dr. S. E. Hemprich, the intimate associate of C. G. Ehrenberg as a fellow student at JBerlin, and 
afterwards as the endeared companion in so many exciting journeys, died at Massowah, 30 June, 1825, of 
typhus fever, having just recovered from the bite of a viper.” (‘ Eucyclopedie des Gens du Monde,’ vol. ix. 
p. 295. Article “Ehrenberg, C. G.,” par Jomard. 1837. Paris.) 
