appears to have been considered nearly as noble an object of pursuit as
the lion. We may presume, from the practice in the adjoining country,
Palestine, 96 that the flesh was eaten as food.

[Illustration: PLATE 28]

The other animal, once indigenous, but which has now disappeared, was
called by the Assyrians the _mithin,_ and is thought to have been the
tiger. Tigers are not now found nearer to Assyria than the country south
of the Caspian, Ghilan, and Mazanderan; but as there is no conceivable
reason why they should not inhabit Mesopotamia, and as the _mithin_ is
constantly joined with the lion, as if it were a beast of the same kind,
and of nearly equal strength and courage, we may fairly conjecture that
the tiger is the animal intended. If this seem too bold a theory, we
must regard the _mithin_ as the larger leopard, an animal of
considerable strength and ferocity, which, as well as the hunting
leopard, is still found in the country. [PLATE XXVI., Fig. 2.]

The birds at present frequenting Assyria are chiefly the following: the
bustard (which is of two kinds--the great and the middle-sized), the
egret, the crane, the stork, the pelican, the flamingo, the red
partridge, the black partridge or francolin, the parrot, the Seleucian
thrush (_Turdus Seleucus_), the vulture, the falcon or hunting hawk, the
owl, the wild swan, the bramin goose, the ordinary wild goose, the wild
duck, the teal, the tern, the sand-grouse, the turtle dove, the
nightingale, the jay, the plover, and the snipe. There is also a large
kite or eagle, called "agab," or "the butcher," by the Arabs, which is
greatly dreaded by fowlers, as it will attack and kill the falcon no
less than other birds.