110 ON THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF SERPENTS. 



skill in curing the bites of snakes, and securing them- 

 selves against them. Another people inhabiting Italy, but 

 less known, were the Marsi ;* we know still less of the 

 Ophigenoi, whose country was Greece. f 



Among the more civilized people of Europe, persons 

 who pretend to possess the art of fascinating serpents, are 

 very rarely to be met : they consist most frequently of igno- 

 rant cliarlatans, who impose on the lower orders, seeking to 

 alarm them by playing familiarly with sei*pents, while they 

 are only thus familiar with the innocuous. M. Lenz has 

 given in his work;J; the history and tragic end of one of 

 those pretended conjurors, who paid with his life for a 

 temerity, founded on absolute ignorance of the nature of 

 vipers. 



HISTORY OF OPIIIOLOGY. 



In tracing, in the following pages, a succinct history of 

 Ophiology, we shall confine ourselves to a notice of the 

 principal authors who have more particularly contributed 

 to the progi'ess of this branch of natural history, consider- 

 ed as a science. 



The first indications of this nature are to be found in 

 the pages of Aristotle : it appears from his observa- 

 tions, that this great man made very exact researches on 

 the nature and anatomy of snakes ;§ but, unfortunately, 

 his work is disfigured by many prejudices, fashionable in 

 his day, which he repeats vdth perfect good faith : this 

 author does not enumerate the species, and speaks but 

 vaguely of the aspic, of the viper, and of serpents in ge- 

 neral. 



The great compilation of Pliny is more rich in curious 

 but erroneous statements, than the work of the Greek philo- 

 sopher of which we have spoken : he omits most of the ana- 

 tomical details given by Aristotle, but he makes men- 

 tion of the principal species known at that time, and 



* Virgil, En. vii. 750 ; Silius Italicus, viii. 495. 



t Plinius, vii. 2 ; ^Elian, xii. 39. 



t Page 192. 



i ii. 12 ; iv. 11 ; v. 3 ; v. 28 ; viii. 17 and 19, &c. 



