Note 100 — BOOK XI. THE VARIOUS KINDS OF INSECTS.

The stellio of the Romans is the “ascalabos” or “ascalabotes” of the Greeks, the lizard into which Ascalabus was changed by Ceres: see Ovid, Met. B. v. l. 450, et seq. Pliny also mentions this in B. xxix. c. 4, though he speaks of some difference in their appearance. It is a species of gecko, the tarentola of Italy, the tarente of Provence, and the geckotta, probably, of Lacepède. The gecko, Cuvier says, is not venomous; but it causes small blisters to rise on the skin when it walks over it, the result, probably, of the extreme sharpness of its nails.