SCINCUS OFFICINALIS. 51 



its feet all kinds of provisions over which it passes. Hasselquist, 

 in 1750, saw a woman and a girl at the point of death, in conse- 

 quence of having eaten some cheese, over which this reptile had 

 dropt its poison. " Once," says he, " at Cairo, I had an oppor- 

 tunity of observing how acrid the exhalations of the toes of this 

 animal are, as it ran over the hand of a man who endeavoured to 

 catch it ; there immediately arose little pustules ' over all those 

 parts the animal had touched; these were red, inflamed, and 

 smarted a little, greatly resembling those occasioned by the stinging 

 of nettles."* The Gecko is driven from the kitchens at Cairo by 

 means of garlic, to which it has a great aversion. Sparman men- 

 tions a Gecko which he saw at the Cape of Good Hope, which 

 was regarded as exceedingly venomous; and Bontius speaks of 

 an East Indian species, which is employed by the natives 

 of Java to poison their arrows. He tells us that the venom 

 of this hideous reptile is so dangerous that if the part affected be 

 not immediately excised or burnt, death will ensue in a few hours. 

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

 its blood and saliva are regarded as equally deadly. 



X. 



SCINCUS OFFICINALIS, 

 Officinal Scjnk. 



Order Sauria, Brong. Cav. — Family SciNCIDiE. 



Gen. Char. Body long, covered with elliptical or 

 rounded imbricated scales ; tongue fleshy, little exten- 

 sile, and slightly cleft; jaws with small close-set teeth, 

 and two rows on the palate ; feet with five toes, tree 

 and uncruiculated. 



o 



Hassclquist's Voyages and Travels in the Levant, p. 219, 



