[Illustration: FIG. 71.--Terra-cotta dog. British Museum. Height 2⅖ inches.] Other domestic animals are figured with no less sure a hand; to each is given the proportions and attitudes that really characterise it. We shall now study them all in succession; others have done so, and have found much precious information upon the fauna of Western Asia and upon the state of Mesopotamian civilization;[173] we shall content ourselves with mentioning the principal types and those in which the sculptor has shown most skill. [Illustration: FIG. 72.--The hounds of Assurbanipal. British Museum. Height 26 inches. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] The colossi of the gateways have already given us an opportunity for showing how art enlisted the powerful limbs and natural majesty of the bull in its service. Elsewhere the bovine race occupies a less important part in Assyrian sculpture than in that of Egypt, in whose tombs scenes of agricultural art are of such constant occurrence. We find, however, the wild bull,[174] which the kings of Calah hunted in the neighbouring desert (Fig. 15), and the draught ox, which, after a lucky raid, the terrors of Asia drive before them with their prisoners and other booty (Vol. I. Fig. 30).[175]--We may also point to the heifer’s head in ivory which acts as tail-piece to the third chapter of our first volume. We sometimes find also sheep and goats of both sexes (Fig. 54);[176] but of all the animals that have close relations with man, that which occurs most often on the palace walls is the horse. They did not use him as a beast of burden; it was the mule that was used for drawing carts (Vol. I. Fig. 31), for carrying women and children and merchandise (Vol. I. Figs. 30 and 115). As with the Arabs of to-day, the horse was reserved for war and hunting. But the Assyrians were not, like the Egyptians, content to harness him to the chariot; they rode him as well. Their armies comprised a numerous and well-provided cavalry; and the Assyrian artist drew the horse a great deal better than his Egyptian _confrère_. The horses we meet with in the Assyrian sculptures are of a heavier breed than Arabs; they are generally shorter and more thickly set. Travellers believe the breed to still exist in the horses of Kurdistan, a country which was bordered by ancient Assyria and dependent upon it.[177] The head is small, well-formed, and well-carried (Fig. 73), the shoulders sloping, the neck and limbs well set on, and the muscles strongly marked. We have already had occasion to figure horses at full speed (Vol. I. Fig. 5), standing still (Vol. I. Figs. 67 and 115), and proceeding at a slow pace (Figs. 21 and 31).[178] No observer can avoid being struck by the truth of attitude, and movement given by the Assyrian sculptor to horses both driven and mounted. Nowhere is this merit more conspicuous than in one of those bas-reliefs of Assurbanipal that figure the episodes of a chase of wild asses (Fig. 74).