of a child in pain, or the first wail of the jackal after sunset, only louder, clearer and more prolonged.  Two varieties of the lion appear to exist:  the one is maneless, while the other has a long mane, which is black and shaggy.  The former is now the more common in the country; but the latter, which is the fiercer of the two, is the one ordinarily represented upon the sculptures.  The lioness is nearly as much feared as the lion; when her young are attacked, or when she has lost them, she is perhaps even more terrible.  Her roar is said to be deeper and far more imposing than of the male.

[Illustration:  Plate 6]

The other animals require but few remarks.  Gazelles are plentiful in the more sandy regions; buffaloes abound in the marshes of the south, where they are domesticated, and form the chief wealth of the inhabitants; troops of jackals are common, while the hyaena and wolf are comparatively rare; the wild-boar frequents the river banks and marshes, as depicted in the Assyrian sculptures [Plate vi., Fig. 1]; hares abound in the country about Baghdad; porcupines and badgers are found in most places—­leopards, lynxes, wild-cats, and deer, are somewhat uncommon.

Chaldaea possesses a great variety of birds.  Falcons, vultures, kites, owls, hawks and crows of various kinds, francolins or black partridges, pelicans, wild-geese, ducks, teal, cranes, herons, kingfishers, and pigeons, are among the most common.  The sand-grouse (Pterocles arenarius) is occasionally found, as also are the eagle and the bee-eater.  Fish are abundant in the rivers and marshes, principally barbel and carp, which latter grow to a great size in the Euphrates.  Barbel form an important element in the food of the Arabs inhabiting the Affej marshes, who take them commonly by means of a fish-spear.  In the Shat-el-Arab, which is wholly within the influence of the tides, there is a species of goby, which is amphibious.  This fish lies in myriads on the mud-banks left uncovered by the ebb of the tide, and moves with great agility on the approach of birds.  Nature seems to have made the goby in one of her most freakish moods.  It is equally at home in the earth, the air, and the water; and at different times in the day may be observed swimming in the stream, basking upon the surface of the tidal banks, and burrowing deep in the mud.

The domestic animals are camels, horses, buffaloes, cows and oxen, goats, sheep, and dogs.  The most valuable of the last mentioned are grayhounds, which are employed to course the gazelle and the hare.  The camels, horses, and buffaloes are of superior quality; but the cows and oxen seem to be a very inferior breed.  The goats and the sheep are small, and yield a scanty supply of a somewhat coarse wool.  Still their flocks and herds constitute the chief wealth of the people, who have nearly forsaken the agriculture which anciently gave Chaldaea its pre-eminence,