The fishermen are always poorly clothed, and seem to have belonged to the class which worked for its living.

It is remarkable that do not anywhere in the sculptures see nets used for fishing; but perhaps we ought not to conclude from this that they were never so employed in Assyria.

The Assyrian sculptors represented only occasionally the scenes of common everyday life; and we are seldom justified in drawing a negative conclusion as to the peaceful habits of the people on any point from the mere fact that the bas-reliefs contain no positive evidence on the subject.
A few other animals were probably, but not certainly, chased by the Assyrians, as especially the ostrich and the bear.

The gigantic bird, which remained in Mesopotamia as late as the time of Xenophon, was well known to the Assyrian artists, who could scarcely have represented it with so much success, unless its habits had been described by hunters.
The bear is much less frequent upon the remains than the ostrich; but its occurrence and the truthfulness of its delineation where it occurs, indicate a familiarity which may no doubt be due to other causes, but is probably traceable to the intimate knowledge acquired by those who hunted it.

[PLATE CXXVI., Fig.