242 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVIII. 



They collect the frankincense by burning styrax, which the Phoeni- 

 cians export into Greece, for flying serpents, small of body and with 

 variegated skins, guard the trees which bear the frankincense, a great 

 number round each tree : as for vipers they are found in all parts of 

 the world, but flying serpents are found in thick swarms in Arabia, 

 and nowhere else, and therefore they appear to be very numerous." 



Pliny the Elder (born A.D. 23, died 79) mentions serpents that 

 twirl themselves by the tail to a branch of one date tree, and so 

 spring to the branches of another ; and says the Arabs call them 

 " flying serpents." This seems to me quite likely in the face of what 

 we know at the present day, if we allow for a certain inaccuracy in 

 the observation. A snake that jumped to another branch would 

 largely depend upon its tail to secure its hold. It would certainly 

 wreath it round the branch upon which it alighted, if in any danger 

 of falling, pending having regained its " foothold." This use of the 

 tail might easily have been misunderstood, and conceived in the 

 light of a spring, and its recoil. Calmet (Augustine) the Benedictine 

 (born 1672, died 1757) refers to the " Seraph" a " flying serpent, the 

 only one that has wings." " Its wings are not feathers, like the 

 wings of birds, but rather like those of bats", and he says " when the 

 Arabian goes to gather the aromatic reed, or cassia, of which these 

 serpents are very fond, they cover all their heads, except their eyes, 

 with skin, to secure themselves from the bite of the serpent, which 

 is very dangerous." 



This reads very like a distortion of the truth in a zealous attempt 

 to reconcile fact with dogma. The detailed anatomical peculiarities 

 given by Calmet refer to some creature obviously not a snake, though 

 it might be a flying lizard. It is to be noted, however, that the flying 

 lizards (Draco) do not occur as far West as Arabia. 



Admiral Lord Anson (born 1697, died 1762) mentions " flying 

 serpents in the Island of Quibo, which darted themselves from the 

 boughs of trees upon man and beast but were without wings." 



Niebuhr (born 1733, died 1815), who published the Natural History 

 notes of his friend and fellow-traveller P. Forskal, refers to " flying 

 snakes" in a strain similar to that of Pliny ; and Parkhurst, the great 

 biblical scholar (born 1728, died 1797) suggested that the snakes 

 alluded to by these authorities might be the same, or allied forms to 



