Sometimes the Lion was hunted as a sport, but this amusement seems to have been restricted to the great men, on account of its expensive nature. Such hunting scenes are graphically depicted in the famous Nineveh sculptures, which represent the hunters pursuing their mighty game in chariots, and destroying them with arrows. Rude, and even conventional as are these sculptures, they have a spirit, a force, and a truthfulness, that prove them to have been designed by artists to whom the scene was a familiar one. Nothing can be better than the attitudes of the Lions; and, whether they are shown in the act of striking a blow, with all the talons thrust out and the toes spread as widely as possible; whether they are springing on the chariot of the hunter, or sinking lifeless beneath his arrows, every attitude is marvellously true to nature, and makes the spectator regret that the artist should have been trammelled by the exigencies of the work on which he was engaged. THE LEOPARD. The Leopard not often mentioned in the Scriptures--its attributes exactly described--Probability that several animals were classed under the name--How the Leopard takes its prey--Craft of the Leopard--its ravages among the flocks--The empire of man over the beast--The Leopard at Bay--Localities wherein the Leopard lives--The skin of the Leopard--Various passages of Scripture explained. Of the Leopard but little is said in the Holy Scriptures. In the New Testament this animal is only mentioned once, and then in a metaphorical rather than a literal sense. In the Old Testament it is casually mentioned seven times, and only in two places is the word Leopard used in the strictly literal sense. Yet, in those brief passages of Holy Writ, the various attributes of the animal are delineated with such fidelity, that no one could doubt that the Leopard was familiarly known in Palestine. Its colour, its swiftness, its craft, its ferocity, and the nature of its dwelling-place, are all touched upon in a few short sentences scattered throughout the Old Testament, and even its peculiar habits are alluded to in a manner that proves it to have been well known at the time when the words were written. It is my purpose in the following pages to give a brief account of the Leopard of the Scriptures, laying most stress on the qualities to which allusion is made, and then to explain the passages in which the name of the animal occurs.