GEroGRAPHY oF Inprta. ABY 
Turse gold making ants are not absolutely unknown in India: bat 
the ant in the shape, and of the size of a Hyrcanian dog, was known only 
on the borders of India, and in Persia. The gold making ants of the 
- Minds ave truly ants,. and of that sort called. Termites. » To those, how- 
ever birds are generally substituted in India: they are mentioned in the 
institutes of Menu * and there called Hemacaras, or gold makers. They 
are represented as of a vast size, living in the mountains to the N. W. of 
India; and whose dung’ mixing witha sort of sand peculiar to that 
country, the mixture becomes gold, The learned here made the same 
observation to me, ‘as they did to Crrstas formerly, that these birds, having 
no occasion for gold, did not care for it, and of course did not watch it; 
but that the people, whose business it was to search for gold, were always 
in imminent danger, from the wild and ferocious animals, which infested 
the country. This was also the opinion of St. Jerome in one of his 
epistles to Rusricus, 
Turse birds are called Hemacaras, or gold. makers; but Gariida, or 
the eagle is styled Swarna-chura or he, who steals gold, in common with 
the tribes of magpies and crows,. who will carry away gold, silver and 
any thing bright, and shining, 
Grup 4 is often represented somewhat like a griffin with the head, and 
wines of an eagie, the body and legs of a man; but with the talons of 
the eagle. He is often painted upon the walls of houses, and generally 
* P. 353, 
