The traveller in Persia suffers less from reptiles than from insects.  Scorpions abound in all parts of the country, and, infesting houses, furniture, and clothes, cause perpetual annoyance.  Mosquitoes swarm in certain places and seasons, preventing sleep and irritating the traveller almost beyond endurance.  A poisonous spider, a sort of tarantula, is said to occur in some localities; and Chardin further mentions a kind of centipede, the bite of which, according to him, is fatal.  To the sufferings which these creatures cause, must be added a constant annoyance from those more vulgar forms of insect life which detract from the delights of travel even in Europe.

Persia, moreover, suffers no less than Babylonia and Media, from the ravages of locusts.  Constantly, when the wind is from the south-east, there cross from the Arabian coast clouds of these destructive insects, whose numbers darken the air as they move, in flight after flight, across the desert to the spots where nature or cultivation has clothed the earth with verdure.  The Deshtistan, or low country, is, of course, most exposed to their attacks, but they are far from being confined to that region.  The interior, as far as Shiraz itself, suffers terribly from this scourge, which produces scarcity, or even famine, when (as often happens) it is repeated year after year.  The natives at such times are reduced to feeding on the locusts themselves; a diet which they do not relish, but to which necessity compels them.

The locusts of Persia Proper are said to be of two kinds.  One, which is regarded as bred in the country, bears the name of missri, being identified with the locust of Egypt.  The other, which is thought to be blown over from Arabia, and thus to cross the sea, is known as the melelch deriai, or “sea-locust.”  The former is regarded as especially destructive to the crops, the latter to the shrubs and trees.

The domestic animals in use at the present day within the provinces of Fars and Kerman are identical with those employed in the neighboring country of Media, and will need only a very few words of notice here.  The ordinary horse of the country is the Turcoman, a large, strong, but somewhat clumsy animal, possessed of remarkable powers of endurance; but in the Deshtistan the Arabian breed prevails, and travellers tell us that in this region horses are produced which fall but little short of the most admired coursers of Nejd.  Cows and oxen are somewhat rare, beef being little eaten, and such cattle being only kept for the supply of the dairy, and for purposes of agriculture.  Sheep and goats are abundant, and constitute the chief wealth of the inhabitants; the goat is, on the whole, preferred, and both goats and sheep are generally of a black or brown color.  The sheep of Kerman are small and short-legged; they produce a wool of great softness and delicacy.