340 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. 



becomes mingled with the shouts of the men, and the shrieks of women and 

 children. Now the terrified shoals get pent up in the narrow passage and entangled 

 in the nets. Here they are easily captured in myriads, and in a few hours all the 

 fishing-smacks are filled to the gunwales. But after this first take the fish are 

 allowed for the rest of the season to enter freely into the lagoon, where they are 

 hunted in the open waters. 



In the Nile itself the most common species is the so-called shabal, a fish armed 

 on the back with three sharp and barbed spines, which inflict painful wounds on 

 those who touch it. The shabal is amongst the very few species that utter a faint 

 cry when taken from the water. The sound resembles somewhat the chirp of the 

 cicada, although not quite so loud. 



A large number of the Nile and Red Sea species have been represented on the 

 ancient monuments with such truth to natui'e that Russegger has succeeded in 

 identifying all of them.* The opening of the Suez Canal has been followed by a 

 partial intermingling of the Mediterranean and E,ed Sea fauna, which had hitherto 

 remained quite distinct. Fishes, molluscs, and other marine forms have passed from 

 one basin to the other, while shoals of various species have met midway in the 

 Bitter Lakes. The free navigation from sea to sea is obstructed by several causes, 

 such as the exclusively sandy nature of the canal bed and embankments, the 

 currents setting in and out, the excessive salinity of the water, the incessant 

 passage especially of steamers. The carnivorous species do not penetrate to any 

 great distance into the canal, owing to the absence or rarity of the fish they prey 

 upon. Nor has the Mediterranean yet been reached by the various corals which 

 are so richly represented in the Red Sea. 



One of the Egyptian insects, the ateuchus saccr, or sacred beetle, has acquired 

 in the history of myths the symbolic sense of creation and renewed life. An image 

 of the sun and of all the heavenly orbs in virtue of her globular form, she also 

 creates a little world or microcosm of her own with the clay in which she deposits 

 her eggs, and which she rolls with untiring efforts from the river-bank to the edge 

 of the desert, where she buries it in the sands. She dies immediately her work is 

 accomplished; but as soon as hatched, the young scarabaei resume their creative 

 functions. This particular variety appears to have migrated southwards, like so 

 many other animal and vegetable species in Egypt. While still very common in 

 Nubia, it is now seldom met below Assuan, although a certain number were lately 

 seen by M. Maspero at Saqqarah, The cause of its almost total disappearance from 

 Upper Egypt is perhaps to be attributed to the greater breadth of the cultivated 

 zone which in many places now intervenes between the banks of the Nile and the 

 skirt of the desert. In Nubia the distance the beetles have to traverse with their 

 precious burdens is usually much less. The Coptic mothers often suspend round 

 their sick child's neck a living scarabseus wrapped in a rag or enclosed in a nut- 

 shell. 



* " Eeisen in Europa, Asien, uad Afrika." 



