DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11638#0221
AND LOWER EGYPT. I99
as well as sparrows, in the middle of the day, with
their bills half open,and the muscles of their breasts
agitated, breathing with difficulty, and as if they
panted for respiration. This instinct, which in-
duces them to prefer those means of subsistence
which are easily obtained, and in abundance, al-
though attended with some suffering, resembles the
mind of man whom a thirst for riches engages to
brave calamities and dangers without number,
A multitude of winged insects serve, at the same
time, for food to the swallows, which never quit a
climate so well calculated to afford them habitations
and subsistence. The Egyptians give them an
Arabian name, which corresponds with that of bird
of paradise. Another species of birds, a great foe
to insects, the laundress, so well known in the
more northern parts of Egypt, is no longer to be
found in these southern countries : but small
flocks of ravens arc now and then to be met with.
The insects there, which are the most numerous
and troublesome, arc the flies *. Both man and
beast are cruelly tormented by them. No idea can
be formed of their obstinate rapacity, when they
wish to fix on some part of the body. It is in vain
to drive them away, they return again the self-same
moment, and their perseverance wearies out the
* Musca domcstica. Lit).
0 4
most
as well as sparrows, in the middle of the day, with
their bills half open,and the muscles of their breasts
agitated, breathing with difficulty, and as if they
panted for respiration. This instinct, which in-
duces them to prefer those means of subsistence
which are easily obtained, and in abundance, al-
though attended with some suffering, resembles the
mind of man whom a thirst for riches engages to
brave calamities and dangers without number,
A multitude of winged insects serve, at the same
time, for food to the swallows, which never quit a
climate so well calculated to afford them habitations
and subsistence. The Egyptians give them an
Arabian name, which corresponds with that of bird
of paradise. Another species of birds, a great foe
to insects, the laundress, so well known in the
more northern parts of Egypt, is no longer to be
found in these southern countries : but small
flocks of ravens arc now and then to be met with.
The insects there, which are the most numerous
and troublesome, arc the flies *. Both man and
beast are cruelly tormented by them. No idea can
be formed of their obstinate rapacity, when they
wish to fix on some part of the body. It is in vain
to drive them away, they return again the self-same
moment, and their perseverance wearies out the
* Musca domcstica. Lit).
0 4
most