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New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 1, 4 January 1908, Page 21

Archaeologists have been delving for many years in the sands of Egypt, and their labours have unearthed many strange finds. But it remained for excavators within the last year to discover something which has hot hitherto been met with in these subterranean explorations. These singular finds were made last season at Abydos, in Upper Egypt, by the Institution of British Archaeology, represented by Prof. Garstang and his colleagues. Inside huge jars of earthenware were found the bodies of hawks which had been preserved from Ptolemaic times, by being mummified much in the same manner as the human bodies recovered from the tombs of the land of the Pharaohs. These little hawks are said to present a very strange appearance, with their beaks peeping out from the eross-strappings which envelop them. Another find was the cemetery of the times of the Ptolemies’ rule in Egypt (323 B.C. to the death of Cleopatra, 30 8.C.) in which the mummified birds were discovered. English is to-day the dominant language of the world, and the use of it among alien peoples is spreading faster than that of any other language. An authority on languages quotes official statistics to show that while for centuries there has been a “ battle of tongues,” English is winning all along the line. Today it is spoken by 120,000,000 people. Second and a long way behind—comes German, spoken by about 75,000,000. Russia is third, slightly behind Germany in point of numbers; while French follows with about 51,000,000. Wonderful changes have taken place during the last century. In 1800 French held the first place, and bid fair to become the world language. Russian, German, and Spanish came next, and English was a bad fifth. In another century English will probably be spoken by half the peoples of the globe.