the Egyptians, to explain how it is that in Thebes, where the sacred character of the cat was held in the highest reverence, and cherished with the greatest devotion, not only embalmed cats have been found, but also the bodies of rats and mice, which had been subjected to the same anti-putrescent process.  If, however, Herodotus is to be credited, the Egyptians owed a deep debt of gratitude to the mice; for the venerable historian assures us, and on the unquestionable authority of the Egyptian priests, that when Sennacherib and his army lay at Pelusium, a mighty corps of field-mice entered the camp by night, and eating up the quivers, bowstrings, and buckler-leathers of the Assyrian troops, in this summary fashion liberated Egypt from the terror of the threatened invasion.  Probably the existence of mice-mummies may be accounted for in this way, and if—­resorting to no violent supposition—­we presume in the good work which the tiny patriots so sagaciously accomplished that their cousins-german the rats were assistant, the whole matter receives a satisfactory explication.  The hypothesis, it is submitted, is not without plausible recommendations on its behalf.  There is extant a fragment of a comedy, entitled ’The Cities,’ written by the Rhodian poet Anaxandrides, in which the Egyptian worship of animals is amusingly enough quizzed.  A translation will be found in Dr Prichard’s Analysis of Egyptian Mythology.  The lines referring to cat-worship are as follow:—­

  ’You cry and wail whene’er ye spy a cat,
  Starving or sick; I count it not a sin
  To hang it up, and flay it for its skin;’

from which it appears this gay free-thinker was not only somewhat sceptical in his religious notions, but, moreover, a hard-hearted, good-for-nothing fellow—­one who, had he lived in our times, would unquestionably have brought himself within the sweep of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the Duke of Beaufort’s Humanity Act.

We learn from Herodotus that in his days it was customary, whenever a cat died, for the whole household at once to go into mourning, and this although the lamented decease might have been the result of old age, or other causes purely natural.  In the case of a cat’s death, however, the eyebrows only were required to be shaved off; but when a dog, a beast of more distinguished reputation, departed this life, every inmate of the house was expected to shave his head and whole body all over.  Both cats and dogs are watched and attended to with the greatest solicitude during illness.  Indeed, by the ancient Egyptians the cat was treated much in the same way as are dogs amongst us:  we find them even accompanying their masters on their aquatic shooting-excursions; and, if the testimony of ancient monuments is to be relied on, often catching the game for them, although it may be permitted to doubt whether they ever actually took to the water for this purpose.