196 APPENDIX. 



Almost the whole of this large tribe of lizards is, by 

 the Arabians, defcribed as poifonous. Experiment has de- 

 tected the falfehood of this, in very many fpecies ; the fame 

 idea has led them to attribute to them medicinal virtues in 

 the fame proportion, and, I am apt to believe, with nearly as 

 little reafon ; at lead, though the books prefcribing them 

 are in everybody's hands, the remedy is not now made ufe 

 of in the places where thofe books were wrote ; and this 

 affords a ftrong proof that the medicine was never very 

 efficacious. 



The Fl Adda is one of the few which the Arabs in all 

 times have believed to be free of poifonous qualities, and 

 yet to have all the medicinal virtues that they have fo a- 

 bundantly lavifhed upon the more noxious fpecies. It has 

 been reputed to be a cure for that moft terrible of all dif- 

 eafes, the Elephantiafis ; yet this diftemper is not, that I know^ 

 in the hotter parts of Africa, and certainly this lizard is not 

 an inhabitant of the higher or colder parts of Abyfliniai 

 which we may call exclufively the domicil of the elephan- 

 tiafis. It is like wife thought to be efficacious in cleanfing 

 the fkin of the body, or face, from cutaneous eruptions, of 

 which the inhabitants of this part of Africa are much more 

 afraid than they are of the plague ; it is alfo ufed againft 

 films, and fuffufions on the eyes. I never did try the effect 

 of any of thefe, but give their hiftory folely upon the au- 

 thority of the Arabian authors. 



I have drawn it here of its natural fize, which is 6f inch., 

 es. Though its legs are very long, it does not make ufe o£ 

 them to ftand upright, but creeps with its belly almoft 

 clofe to the ground. It runs, however, with very great ve- 



3, locity. 



