Confirmatory witnesses are Diodorus Siculus, who notes the great number and the many varieties of fish found in the Nile,[757] and Ælian, who neatly and truly characterises the aftermath of the annual inundation as “a harvest of fish.”[758] Evidence, again, of “a plenty” of fish, its pursuit, and its copious consumption fronts us in the prehistoric kitchen-middens and in the bone or horn harpoons of pre-dynastic graves. Later, the frequent tomb fishing-scenes and some textual notices attest absence of dearth. The numerous slate palettes in the pre-dynastic graves furnish Mr. Bates with further proof, and with a new theory, which seems to me, if ingenious, too ingenuous and too far-fetched. The palettes,[759] almost invariably presenting the profile of only those fishes, birds, or beasts that historic men pursued for food, were intended (by the aid of colours extracted from the malachite, galena, etc., crushed upon them) to establish an unpalpable, but, in human eyes, very serviceable connection between the fisher and his prey. One method of such connection consists in creating a likeness of the intended quarry. Such a likeness, by the belief that the _simulacrum_ is actively _en rapport_ with that which it represents, bestows on the possessor power over the original. “Cases,” Bates correctly adds, “of this sort are the commonplaces of imitative magic.” Usually a hunting or fishing amulet which simulates the form of the quarry was worn by the owner, or attached to his gear. The palettes themselves played the part of mere paint-stones, but their supposed resident power might very efficaciously be transferred to its proprietor by means of _the paint ground upon it_. “Persons who go in pursuit of the crocodile,” says Pliny, “anoint themselves with its fat.”[760] In the same way as the crocodile-hunter thus assimilates himself to his quarry by a direct contagion, so the owner of the palette could possess himself of the power in the slate likeness by painting himself with the “medicine” ground upon it. The validity, or otherwise, of the suggestion must be determined by expert mythologists. The theory, to my mind, appears too far-fetched, and breaks down from the introduction of an additional agency. The fisher wearing an amulet or attaching a charm to his tackle, and the fat-anointed crocodile hunter both supposedly have direct connection with his quest.