416 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARABIA 



man are easily accounted for on the principle of instinct, 

 which prompts it not only to feed on locusts, but to kill as 

 many of them as possible ; and hence, it naturally follows 

 them in the course of their passage. The Arabs named to 

 Forskal several other birds which he could never see, and 

 of which, consequently, he did not ascertain the genus. Of 

 these were the Sumana ; the Salra, which he understood to 

 be the rail, a bird of passage which frequents some districts ; 

 the Thar d Hind, remarkable for its gilded plumage, and 

 supposed from the name to come from India ; the Achjal, 

 famous for the beautiful feathers with which the Highlanders 

 adorn their bonnets : so careful is the bird about their growth, 

 that it is said to bore a hole in the nest to preserve them un- 

 injured. Game is abundant in Arabia, especially on the plains 

 along the Euphrates, — the ancient kingdom of' Nimrod, that 

 " mighty hunter before the Lord." The inhabitants, how- 

 ever, regard neither the exercise nor the amusement of fowl- 

 Jng. "With a people living in a climate where animal food 

 is injurious to health, game is despised. The precepts of the 

 Koran are inimical to the diversion of field-sports. The 

 labours of the huntsman or the fowler are lost, and his prev 

 becomes impure, if he has but neglected the repetition of one 

 short prayer when he killed the animal ; if it has not lost the 

 exact quantity of blood required by the law ; if the beast or 

 bird struggled with any remains of life after it was shot ; or 

 if it fell upon a place which was either inhabited or in any 

 manner defiled. These causes will explain why the Arabs 

 have an apathy or aversion for those sports of which savages 

 in other countries are so passionately fond. From the nature 

 of the climate, it cannot be expected that Arabia possesses 

 any great variety of waterfowl. In marshy places, however, 

 cranes, herons, snipes, storks, swans, pelicans, and a beauti- 

 ful species of the plover, are found. Sea-birds are numerous 

 on the coasts, especially those of the Red Sea, which is co- 

 piously stored with fish. Besides gulls, of which there are 

 a variety of species, Niebuhr saw in one of the islands of 

 that gulf pelicans which had built nests, and laid eggs as 

 large as those of the common aroose. 



Reptiles. — The Danish travellers never met with the sea- 

 tortoise ; but the land-tortoise was not uncommon. In sev- 

 eral places they saw the peasants bring them in loads to the 

 market The Eastern Christians eat them in Lent, and 



