ORDER SAURIA. S31 



be not excided or burnt, death will ensue in a few hours. Its 

 urine is also said to be one of the most corrosive poisons. Its 

 blood and saliva, yellow and thick, are regarded as equally 

 deadly. 



The House Gecko {Lacerta Gecko, Hasselquist) is com- 

 mon in all the humid and gloomy parts of houses in the diffe- 

 rent countries which border the Mediterranean sea to the 

 south and east, in Egypt, in Arabia, in Syria, and in Bar- 

 bary, from whence it has subsequently spread, through the 

 various countries of Southern Europe. At Cairo they name 

 this Gecko, Ahou-burs (father of the leprosy), because they 

 pretend that it communicates this malady by poisoning with 

 its feet provisions of all kinds, but more especially salted pro- 

 visions, of which it is extremely fond. It produces redness 

 and inflammation, by walking on the skin. 



Its voice resembles the croaking of the frog, and the cry, 

 it is said, may be expressed by the syllables geck-o. 



Ancient writers, in speaking of this reptile, have attached 

 too much importance to the fables related concerning it by 

 the natives of the Levant. Bontius, for instance, was totally 

 wrong in saying that the gecko could impress its teeth on the 

 hardest bodies, even on steel. They are not even sufficiently 

 strong to pierce the skin. 



It is neither from its bite, its saliva, nor its urine, that this 

 animal is hurtful. Hasselquist has remarked, that it is 

 through the lobules of its toes that the poison exudes. This 

 author, in 1750, saw at Cairo two women and a girl who were 

 at the point of death, in consequence of having eaten some 

 cheese over which this reptile had crawled. At another time 

 he saw the hand of a man who would lay hold of a gecko, 

 instantaneously covered with red pustules, inflamed, and 

 accompanied with an itching equal to that produced by the 

 stinging of a nettle. 



We are told that the cats pursue the gecko, and feed upon 



