462 



NATURAL HISTORY OF ARABIA. 



vaded their chambers, and persisted in their attacks with 

 singular obstinacy. They are very destructive to trees, 

 the sweetness of whose leaves and fruit is extremely 

 gratifying to them. To preserve their gardens from 

 ruin, the natives are obliged to surround the trunks with 

 sheep's dung, the smell of which this insect cannot en- 

 dure. In Arabia there are many species of ants, all of 

 which are harmless, except two ; one of these attacks the 

 natives, and its bite is little less painful than that of the 

 scorpion ; the other settles upon their victuals with great 

 avidity, and can only be driven away by the odour of 

 camphor. They are likewise much infested by a sort of 

 scolopendra, which torments with a burning pain those 

 on whom it fixes. This insect inserts its feet into the 

 flesh, so that it is impossible to get rid of it, otherwise 

 than by successively burning all the parts affected with a 

 hot iron. Another venomous insect, resembling a spider, 

 which infests the deserts, is that to which the Bedouins 

 give the name ofabou hanekein, or the two-mouthed. Its 

 length is about three inches ; it has five long legs on both 

 sides, covered like the body with setce or bristles, of a 

 light-yellow colour. The head is long and pointed, with 

 large black eyes ; the mouth is armed with two pairs of 

 fangs, one above the other, recurved and extremely sharp. 

 It makes its appearance only at night, and is chiefly at- 

 tracted by fire. The Arabs entertain the greatest dread 

 of them ; their bite, if not always mortal, produces vo- 

 miting, swelling, and the most excruciating pains. Among 

 the tenebriones is one species which destroys reeds and at- 

 tacks the stalks of corn, where it deposites its eggs. Ano- 

 ther tenebrio, found among the filth of gardens, is used 

 as an article of female luxury. Plumpness being thought 

 a beauty in the East, both the Turkish and Arab women, 

 in order to obtain this enviable obesity, swalloAv every 

 morning and evening three of these insects fried in butter. 

 Shells. It would be difficult to enumerate the vast 

 diversity of shells that adorn the banks, or lie in the 

 shallows of the Arabian Seas. Cyprece are seen in the 

 Gulf of Suez, beautifully spotted, and in a great va- 

 riety of sizes. Turbinated and bivalve shells are also 

 common, remarkable not only for the luxuriance of their 

 colours, but so exceedingly capacious that Buccina have 

 been found a foot and a half long, while some of the 

 bivalve specimens are as much in diameter. There are 



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