200 



FA UNA. 



a bird which everywhere preserves its fine game 

 flavour, is found on the Island and in the central 

 Continent. Sandpipers (charadrius hiaticula) run 

 on the beach, and the waters support various 

 kinds of cranes, gulls, and terns. 



When fewer ships visited the port, the sand- 

 spit projecting from 'Frenchman's Island' was 

 covered with bay-turtle 1 (chelone esculenta or 

 Midas), which the negroes were too indolent or 

 ignorant to catch. The iguanas or harmless 

 crocodiles (ouSsW 8s au6pa)7r(ov ahixouo-iv) of the 

 Periplus, have not yet been killed out of Zan- 

 zibar — and there are several species. 2 Until lately 

 the true crocodile was found in a small sweet 

 stream about eight miles south of the town, and 

 the monsters swarm in every river of the mainland. 



Snakes are neither numerous nor deadly : 

 possibly the climate, as in Ireland and Ber- 

 muda, is too damp for them. I heard of a 

 python 3 resembling that of Madagascar and 



1 The yekuvr) opav//, or mountain-tortoise of the Periplus 

 (chap. i. 15), may have been a turtle or terrapin. A small 

 quantity of tortoise-shell is sold on the island by Malagashes 

 (Madagascarians) and Comoro men. 



2 The iguana abounds on the West Coast of Africa, and in 

 the Bonny Eiver, where the huge hideous lizard is Ju- J u — ob- 

 noxious to the honours of divinity. 



3 So Dr Eoschenberger mentions at Zanzibar a coluber 

 called boa-constrictor, and peculiar to America. 



