The flora would not have been so abundant if the fauna had been sufficient for the supply of a large population.  A considerable proportion of the tribes on the Lower Euphrates lived for a long time on fish only.  They consumed them either fresh, salted, or smoked:  they dried them in the sun, crushed them in a mortar, strained the pulp through linen, and worked it up into a kind of bread or into cakes.  The barbel and carp attained a great size in these sluggish waters, and if the Chalaeans, like the Arabs who have succeeded them in these regions, clearly preferred these fish above others, they did not despise at the same time such less delicate species as the eel, murena, silurus, and even that singular gurnard whose habits are an object of wonder to our naturalists.  This fish spends its existence usually in the water, but a life in the open air has no terrors for it:  it leaps out on the bank, climbs trees without much difficulty, finds a congenial habitat on the banks of mud exposed by the falling tide, and basks there in the sun, prepared to vanish in the ooze in the twinkling of an eye if some approaching bird should catch sight of it.  Pelicans, herons, cranes, storks, cormorants, hundreds of varieties of seagulls, ducks, swans, wild geese, secure in the possession of an inexhaustible supply of food, sport and prosper among the reeds.  The ostrich, greater bustard, the common and red-legged partridge and quail, find their habitat on the borders of the desert; while the thrush, blackbird, ortolan, pigeon, and turtle-dove abound on every side, in spite of daily onslaughts from eagles, hawks, and other birds of prey.

[Illustration:  032.jpg A WINGED GENIUS HOLDING IN HIS HAND THE SPATHE OF THE MALE DATE-PALM.]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief from Nimrud, in
     the British Museum.

[Illustration:  033.jpg THE HEAVILY MANED LION WOUNDED BY AN ARROW AND VOMITING BLOOD.]

Snakes are found here and there, but they are for the most part of innocuous species:  three poisonous varieties only are known, and their bite does not produce such terrible consequences as that of the horned viper or Egyptian uraeus.  There are two kinds of lion—­one without mane, and the other hooded, with a heavy mass of black and tangled hair:  the proper signification of the old Chaldaean name was “the great ’dog,” and they have, indeed, a greater resemblance to large dogs than to the red lions of Africa.* They fly at the approach of man; they betake themselves in the daytime to retreats among the marshes or in the thickets which border the rivers, sallying forth at night, like the jackal, to scour the country.  Driven to bay, they turn upon the assailant and fight desperately.  The Chaldaean kings, like the Pharaohs, did not shrink from entering into a close conflict with them, and boasted of having rendered a service to their subjects by the destruction of many of these beasts.

* The Sumerian name of the lion is ur-malch “the great dog.”  The best description of the first-mentioned species is still that of Olivier, who saw in the house oL the Pasha of Bagdad five of them in captivity; cf.  Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, p. 487.  Father Scheil tells me the lions have disappeared completely since the last twenty years.