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possess it, is a land of hills and vallies, and "drinketh water of the rain of heaven."

Of the Egyptian Animals.

IF, from this short account of their vegetable productions, we enquire after their animals, the hippopotamus is what the present race of Egyptians are not at all acquainted with. Nay, the very crocodile, or timsah, as they call it, so rarely appears below the cataracts, that the sight of it is as great a curiosity to them as to the Europeans. In like manner the ibis, that was once known to every family, is now become exceedingly rare; neither could I learn that it was any where to be met with. By the skeleton of one of these birds embalmed, which I brought from Egypt, the upper part of the bill (for the lower is mouldered away) is shaped exactly like that of the numenius, or curlew. The thigh bone is five, and the tibia six inches long; each of them smaller and more delicate than in the heron; and consequently the crus rigidum, which is attributed to it by Tully*, seems to be without foundation. The feathers are so scorched, by the composition they were embalmed with, that they have lost their original colour, which, according to Plutarch, should be both black and white as in the πελαργός. That part of the rump, or region

of

* Ibes maximam vim serpentium conficiunt, cum sint aves excelsæ, cruribus rigidis, corneo proceroque rostro. De nat. Deor. 1. i. p. 210. Ed. Lamb.

2

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of the kidneys, which remains, is of the same bigness as in an ordinary pullet; from which circumstance, the ibis appears to have been of a smaller size than our heron or bittern. The figure which I have of this gyds ogvior, in a sardonyx, (the same likewise that is upon an Egyptian medal of Hadrian, in the smaller brass), shews it to come nearer to the stork, in shape and in gesture too, than to either of the birds last mentioned.

But the loss of the ibis is abundantly supplied by the stork. For, besides a great number of thein that might undoubtedly escape my notice, I saw, in the middle of April 1722, (our ship lying then at anchor under Mount Carmel), three flights of them, some of which were more open and scattered, with larger intervals between them; others were closer and more compact, as in the flights of crows and other birds, each of which took up more than three hours in passing by us, extending itself at the same time more than half a mile in breadth. They were then leaving Egypt, where the canals and the ponds that are annually left by the Nile were become dry, and directed themselves towards the N. E. No less extraordinary and surprising are those flights of pigeons, which have been observed in New England, and in other parts of America *. This

In Virginia, I have seen the pigeons of passage fly in 'such continued trains three days successively, that there was ⚫ not the least interval in losing sight of them, but that some'where or other in the air they were to be seen continuing their

* Right

This I mention as a parallel case, because some do not easily give credit to my account.

It is observed of the storks, when they know their appointed time, Jer. viii. 7. that, for about the space of a fortnight, before they pass from one country to another, they constantly resort together, from all the circumjacent parts, in a certain plain; and there forming themselves, once every day, into a dou-wanne, or council, (according to the phrase of these Eastern nations), are said to determine the exact time of their departure, and the place of their future abodes. Those that frequent the marshes of Barbary, appear about three weeks sooner than the flights above mentioned, though they likewise are supposed to come from Egypt; whither also they return a little after the autumnal equinox, the Nile being then retired within its banks, and the country in a proper disposition to supply them with nourish

ment.

The Mahometans have the bel-arje (for so they commonly call the stork *) in the highest esteem and veneration. It is as sacred among them, as

the

'flight south. Where they roost (which they do on one ano'thers backs) they often break down the limbs of oaks by their weight, and leave their dung some inches thick under the trees 'hey roost upon.' Catesby's Carolina, p. 23.

* Leklek or Legleg is the name, that is commonly used by the Arabian authors, though bel-arje prevails all over Barbary. Bochart (Hieroz. 1. ii. c. 29.) supposeth it to be the same with the hasida of the Scriptures, a bird which was so called from the piety of it. Nam piam et benignam sonat. Id. ibid. Eximia ciconiis inest pietas. Etenim quantum temporis impenderint fætibus educandis, tantum et ipsæ a pullis suis invicem aluntur. Solin. Polyhist. c. 53. Ælian. Hist. Animal. 1. iii. c. 23. Horap. 1. ii. c. 55.

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