346 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



purpose of lubricating its thick hide, and thus preventing it from break- 

 ing. When in the water. its whole aspect seems changed, and the an- 

 imal becomes inspired with a new life and activity. Sinking down to 

 the bottom, and moving about when submerged for a while, it will 

 suddenly rise with a bound almost bodily out of the water, and, splash- 

 ing back, commence swimming about with a porpoise-like motion, 

 taking in mouthfuls of water and spurting them out again, raising at 

 intervals its grotesque head, and biting the wood-work at the margin 

 of the tank. In the water, from its broad rounded back being princi- 

 pally in view, it has the appearance of a much larger animal than when 

 seen upon land. It is extremely docile, and follows its Arab keeper 

 like a clog. Its food is a kind of porridge of milk and corn-meal. 



At a late meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, ex- 

 tracts of a letter from Sir Charles Lyell were read, in which he alluded 

 to the great advantages which the hippopotamus had conferred on the 

 Zoological Society. The creature cost the Society about 1,500; 

 but from the proceeds of its exhibition this sum had not only been paid, 

 but a splendid collection of reptiles had been added, and the Society 

 freed from all pecuniary embarrassments. 



NEW BREED OF RABBITS. 



AT a recent agricultural exhibition held at Chatham, England, a 

 new variety of rabbits was exhibited, chiefly remarkable for the enor- 

 mous length of their ears. In one animal, a buck, the length of the 

 ear was 21| inches ; in another, a doe, 21^ inches, with a breadth of 

 nearly 5 inches. 



ON THE SERPENT OF THE BIBLE. 



PROF. OWEN, the distinguished English naturalist, in his work on 

 British reptiles, makes the following remarks on the serpent of the 

 Bible : The discovery of serpents of different genera and species, 

 all manifesting the peculiar and characteristic vertebral organization of 

 true Ophidia, at a period incalculably remote from that at which we 

 have any evidence of the existence of man, viz. the eocene tertiary, 

 forcibly recalls our early ideas of the nature and origin of serpents de- 

 rived from annotations of Scripture which represented them as the 

 progeny of a transmuted species, degraded from its originally created 

 form as the consequence and punishment of its instrumentality in the 

 temptation of Eve. " The curse upon the serpent," say the learned 

 Drs. D'Oily and Mant, " consisted, 1st. In bringing down his stature, 

 which was probably, in a great measure, erect before this time ; ' Upon 

 thy belly shall thou go ' ; 2dly. In the meanness of his provision, 

 ' and dust shall thou eat,' insomuch as creeping upon the ground, it 

 cannot but lick up much dust with its food." The idea of the special 

 degradation of the serpent to its actual form, derived from interpreting 

 the sentence upon it as a literal statement of fact, has been so preva- 

 lent, as to have affected some of the zoological treatises of the last cen- 

 tury. Thus, in a " Natural History of Serpents," by Charles Owen, 



