284 OFFICINAL SCINK. 



inch and three quarters long ; its feet are com- 

 posed of five toes, the extremity of each is armed 

 with a brown claw of no great strength, whose 

 end is tipped with black." 



Mr. Bruce adds, that the El Adda is one of the 

 few lizards which the Arabs in all times have be- 

 lieved to be free from poisonous qualities, and yet 

 to have all the medical virtues they have so abund- 

 antly lavished upon the more noxious species : 

 their character, however, as a medicine, seems to 

 be greatly on the decline in their native regions, 

 and though the books prescribing them are in 

 every body's hands, yet the medicine is not now 

 made use of in the places where the books were 

 written, which aiiords a pretty strong proof that 

 it was never very efficacious. 



Mr. Bruce observes, that lizards in general are 

 peculiarly numerous in the eastern regions. The 

 desert parts of Syria, bordering on Arabia Deserta, 

 abound with them beyond a possibility of count- 

 ing them. 



I am positive," says Mr. Bruce, that I can 

 say, v/ithout exaggeration, that the number I saw 

 one day, in the great court of the temple of the 

 Sun at Balbec, amounted to many thousands : the 

 ground, the walls, and stones of the ruined build- 

 ings, were covered with them, and the various co- 

 lours of which they consisted made a very extra- 

 ordinary appearance, glittering under the sun, in 

 which they lay sleeping and basking." 



