1$$ TRAVELS IN UTPEIt 



ardent. It appears that they are equally prolific; 

 for they are very numerous in Arabia, in b)iia, in 

 Egypt, and in Barbary. In the north, probably, 

 these faculties are enfeebled; nay, I presume to 

 conjecture they are lulled to sleep there, during 

 the most rigorous part of the season, and that, for 

 this reason, they do not multiply so fast as in more 

 southern climates. 



During m> residence, or, to speak more pro- 

 perly, during my rambles in Egypt, I dissected 

 some jerbos; but as time is almost always want- 

 ing in travels of this kind, I satisfied myself with 

 examining, whether the interior of those animals, 

 so singular as to their external forms, presented 

 any thing extraordinary. My principal object 

 was to ascertain more particularly, that they had 

 but a single stomach, and thai, of consequence, 

 they had not the faculty of ruminating. This 

 would have been a reply lo one of the questions 

 which Michaelis, professor at Gottinguen, had 

 addressed to the travellers dispatched into the 

 East, by the king of Denmark ; namely, " Is the 

 "jerbo a ruminating animal * ?" A question al- 

 ways originating in the same mistake, that of 

 confounding the jerbo with the daman-israe'I, or 

 the schafan of the Hebrews. Some subjects, pre- 



* The intelligent and curious Travellers, or Instructive Ta- 

 blets, vol, ii. p. 321, 



served 



