APPENDIX. 175 



The reafon, we are told, why this bird was held in fuch 

 veneration in Egypt, was the great enmity it had to fer- 

 pents, and the ufe of freeing the country from them ; but 

 for my own part, I mufl confefs, that as I know, for certain, 

 there are no quantity of ferpents in Egypt, as the reafon of 

 things is that they mould be few, fo I can never make 

 myfelf believe they ever were in fuch abundance, as to need 

 any particular agent to diitinguim itfelf by deftroying them. 

 Egypt Proper, that is the cultivated and inhabited part of it, 

 is overflowed for five months every |year by the Nile, and it 

 is impomble vipers can abound where there is fuch long and 

 regular refrigerations. The viper calls his fkin in May, and 

 is immediately after in his renewed youth and fulnefs of 

 vigour. All this time he would be doomed in Egypt to live 

 under water, or hid in fome hole, and this is the time when 

 the Ibis is in Egypt, fo that the end of his coming would be 

 fruftrated by the abfence of his enemy. The vipers have 

 their abode in the fandy defert of Libya, where even dew 

 does not fall, where the fand is continually in motion, parch- 

 ed with hot winds, and glowing with the fcorching rays of 

 the fun. There the Ibis could not live ; the country is not 

 inhabited by man, and confequently vipers there would be 

 no nuifance. Nay, we know thefe vipers of Libya are 

 an article of commerce in Egypt. The Theriac is com- 

 pofed of them at Venice and at Rome, and they are difper- 

 ied for the ufes of medicine throughout the different pares of 

 the world. 



Now, in this light, the Ibis could not live among them, 

 nor would he be of benefit even" if he could; but as we 

 have it from a number of credible hiflorians that the Ibis 

 was plentiful in Egypt, that vipers, at kail, in fome part of 



2 it. 



