xlviii INTRODUCTION. 
Zoological Literature bearing on the Areas treated of in this Work. 
From the time of the visit of Herodotus to Egypt until Hasselquist's day a long list 
of authors, including Aldrovandus and others, might be quoted who dealt, more or 
less, with the animals of the country, but whose descriptions were invariably confined, 
so far as Reptiles were concerned, to the crocodile, land-tortoise, Nile turtle, Stellio, 
waral, scink, chameleon, asp, horned viper, hornless Cerastes, and flying serpents. 
The distinguished Arab traveller and physician of Baghdad, Abd-Allatif 1 , who visited 
Egypt in the 14th century, mentioned nearly all of these animals. In later years 
(1546-49) the careful and observing Belon 2 did the same, and did not omit to bring 
in the winged snake or dragon, in which he apparently so firmly believed that he 
gave the figure of one, a creature of his own and of his artist's imagination. 
Prospero Alpini 3 , physician to the Consul of the Venetian Republic in Egypt, who 
resided at Cairo from 1581 to 1584, may next be noticed, as he paid particular attention, 
not only to the botany of Egypt, but also to the zoology of the country, to which he 
devoted the fourth book of his ' Rerum .ZEgyptiarum.' In the fourth chapter, the 
serpents common in Egypt, and, in the fifth chapter, " the animals of the lizard tribe 
which dwell there," are described. The lizards are restricted to the Seps, chameleon, 
scink, and crocodile, but what he meant by the first-mentioned and the scink it is 
impossible to say. His description of the snakes is equally unsatisfactory, and his 
treatment of both of these sections of animal life leads to the belief that his statements 
were largely based on hearsay ; it should, however, be remembered that the ' Rerum 
^Egyptiarum ' was published after his death. 
The writings of Shaw 4 and of Pococke 5 do not add to our knowledge of the fauna 
of Egypt. 
A period of almost 200 years elapsed after Belon before the appearance of the next 
really important work on the zoology of Egypt, the materials for which had been 
collected by Linnseus's pupil, Frederick Hasselquist s , born at East Gothia on the 
3rd January, 1722. When he was twenty-five years of age he listened to one of 
Linnaeus's botanical lectures, in which the great Swede deplored the ignorance that then 
existed regarding the natural history of Palestine. Hasselquist became fired with an 
enthusiastic desire to be the first to make it known ; but Linnseus, being aware of the 
indifferent state of his pupil's health and of the difficulty of raising money for such an 
1 Relation de l'Egypte, par Abd-Allatif, par M. Silvestre de Sacy. 1810. 
" Les Observations de Plusieurs Singularitez, &c. Paris, 1554. 
3 Rerum JEgyptiarum. 1735. 
4 Travels and Observations relating to Barbary. 1738. 
s A Descr. of the East, &c. 17J3. 
c Iter Pataestiuum. 1757. 
