[PLATE LVII., Fig.

3.] The vegetable forms represented on the gems are sometimes graceful and pleasing.

This is especially the case with palm-trees, a favorite subject of the artists, who delineated with remarkable success the feathery leaves, the pendant fruit and the rough bark of the stem.

[PLATE LVIII., Fig 1.] The lion-hunter represented on the signet-cylinder of Darius Hystaspis takes place in a palm-grove, and furnishes the accompanying example of this form of vegetable life.
[Illustration: PLATE LVIII.] One gem, ascribed on somewhat doubtful grounds to the Persians of Achaemenian times, contains what appears to be a portrait.

It is thought to be the bust of a satrap of Salamis in Cyprus, and is very carefully executed.