or in the
fields; the scorpion crawls everywhere, in desert and city alike, and if
its sting is not always followed by death, it invariably causes terrible
pain. Probably there were once several kinds of gigantic serpent in
Egypt, analogous to the pythons of equatorial Africa. They are still to
be seen in representations of funerary scenes, but not elsewhere; for,
like the elephant, the giraffe, and other animals which now only thrive
far south, they had disappeared at the beginning of historic times.
The hippopotamus long maintained its ground before returning to those
equatorial regions whence it had been brought by the Nile. Common under
the first dynasties, but afterwards withdrawing to the marshes of the
Delta, it there continued to flourish up to the thirteenth century of
our era. The crocodile, which came with it, has, like it also, been
compelled to beat a retreat. Lord of the river throughout all ancient
times, worshipped and protected in some provinces, execrated and
proscribed in others, it might still be seen in the neighbourhood of
Cairo towards the beginning of our century. In 1840, it no longer passed
beyond the neighbourhood of Gebel et-Ter, nor beyond that of Manfalut
in Thirty years later, Mariette asserted that it was steadily retreating
before the guns of tourists, and the disturbance which the regular
passing of steamboats produced in the deep waters. To-day, no one knows
of a single crocodile existing below Aswan, but it continues to infest
Nubia, and the rocks of the first cataract: one of them is occasionally
carried down by the current into Egypt where it is speedily despatched
by the fellahin, or by some traveller in quest of adventure. The
fertility of the soil, and the vastness of the lakes and marshes,
attract many migratory birds; passerinae and palmipedes flock thither
from all parts of the Mediterranean. Our European swallows, our
quails, our geese and wild ducks, our herons--to mention only the
most familiar--come here to winter, sheltered from cold and inclement
weather.

[Illustration: 044.jpg THE IBIS OF EGYPT.]

Even the non-migratory birds are really, for the most part, strangers
acclimatized by long sojourn. Some of them--the turtledove, the magpie,
the kingfisher, the partridge, and the sparrow-may be classed with our
European species, while others betray their equatorial origin in the
brightness of their colours. White and black ibises, red flamingoes,
pelicans, and cormorants