The animals themselves are lifelike, each with the gait and action and flexion of the limbs peculiar to its species.

The slow and measured tread of the ox; the short step, the meditative ear, the ironical mouth of the ass; the abrupt little trot of the goat, the spring of the hunting greyhound, are all rendered with invariable success of outline and expression.

Turning from domestic animals to wild beasts, the perfection of treatment is the same.
The calm strength of the lion in repose, the stealthy and sleepy tread of the leopard, the grimace of the ape, the slender grace of the gazelle and the antelope, have never been better expressed than in Egypt.

But it was not so easy to project man--the whole man--upon a plane surface without some departure from nature.

A man cannot be satisfactorily reproduced by means of mere lines, and a profile outline necessarily excludes too much of his person.