Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/420

 840 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. becomes mingled with the shouts of the men, and the shrieks of women and children. Now the terrified shoals get pent up in the narrow passage and entangled in the nets. Here they are easily captured in myriads, and in a few hours all the fishing-smacks are filled to the gunwales. But after this first take the fish are allowed for the rest of the season to enter freely into the lagoon, where they are hunted in the open waters. In the Nile itself the most common species is the so-called shohal, a fish armed on the back with three sharp and barbed spines, which inflict painful wounds on those who touch it. The shabal is amongst the very few species that utter a faint cry when taken from the water. The sound resembles somewhat the chirp of the cicada, although not quite so loud. A large number of the Nile and Red Sea species have been represented on the ancient monuments with such truth to nature that Russegger has succeeded in identifying all of them.* The opening of the Suez Canal has been followed by a partial intermingling of the Mediterranean and Red Sea fauna, which had hitherto remained quite distinct. Fishes, molluscs, and other marine forms have passed from one basin to the other, while shoals of various species have met midway in the Bitter Lakes. The free navigation from sea to sea is obstructed by several causes, such as the exclusively sandy nature of the canal bed and embankments, the currents setting in and out, the excessive salinity of the water, the incessant passage especially of steamers. The carnivorous species do not penetrate to any great distance into the canal, owing to the absence or rarity of the fish they prey upon. Nor has the Mediterranean yet been reached by the various corals which are so richly represented in the Red Sea. One of the Egyptian insects, the ateuchiis sacer, or sacred beetle, has acquired in the history of myths the symbolic sense of creation and renewed life. An image of the sun and of all the heavenly orbs in virtue of her globular form, she also creates a little world or microcosm of her own with the clay in which she deposits her eggs, and which she rolls with untiring efforts from the river-bank to the edge of the desert, where she buries it in the sands. She dies immediately her work is accomplished ; but as soon as hatched, the young scarabaei resume their creative functions. This particular variety appears to have migrated southwards, like so many other animal and vegetable species in Egypt. While still very common" in Nubia, it is now seldom met below Assuan, although a certain number were lately seen by M. Maspero at Saqqarah. The cause of its almost total disappearance from Upper Egypt is perhaps to be attributed to the greater breadth of the cultivated zone which in many places now intervenes between the banks of the Nile and the okirt of the desert. In Nubia the distance the beetles have to traverse with their precious burdens is usually much less. The Coptic mothers often suspend round their sick child's neck a living scarabajus wrapped in a rag or enclosed in a nut- shell. •
 * *' Beisen in Europa, Asien, and Afrika."