HISTORY OF OPIIIOLOGY. Ill 



proves, by his description of the fangs of the viper,* that 

 the true seat of the poisonous organ was not unknown to 

 the ancients. 



JElian still surpasses his predecessors in the great num- 

 ber of errors which he details with regard to the manners 

 of sei'pents ; of which he describes several species, and most 

 frequently copies their descriptions. 



Other classic authors, such as Nicander, Virgil, Lu- 

 CAN, &c., speak, in their works, more or less directly, of 

 serpents, of their qualities, and of the effects of their 

 bite ; but these poetic productions have contributed little 

 to advance the knowledge of animals, of the true peculiari- 

 ties of which the ancients were ignorant. 



The Greeks indiscriminately comprehended all serpents 

 under the general denominations of d^axoov and of o(pig, de- 

 rivatives from the verbs ds^xsiv and o'jrrnv, both of which 

 signify to see. The first of these appellations has been 

 adopted by the Latins ; but that people also employed the 

 general names, annuls and serpens, to denominate Ophidi- 

 ans. The German word Schlange, from Schlingen, has an 

 etymology analagous to the Latin serpens, from serpere, 

 whence the French have formed their words serpent and 

 serpenter. Many other names in use among the ancients 

 appear to have been very vaguely applied, although in a 

 sense very general, ^lian,"!" for example, enumerates 16 

 species of Aspis, while it appears from passages in other 

 writers, that the Aspis was the Naja haje.| It is not pos- 

 sible to determine positively the species of Ophidians 

 known to the ancients, because of the incomplete descrip- 

 tions which they have left us ; therefore it is not mthout 

 hesitation that I hazard conjectures on this subject. But 

 here they are : The manners which Pliny§ and ^Elian || 

 attribute to the Jaculus coincide perfectly with those of 

 the Coluber flavolineatus ; the Amphisb(Bna% of these 

 authors is probably identical with our Eryx ; the etymo- 

 logy of the word Cerastes*'^ proves that it is still the same 



* L. cap. xi. 62. t L. c. x. 31. 



i NiCAxNDER, in Theriac ; LiTCAN, 9, 695 ; Plix. 8, 35. 



§ L. c. 8, 35. II L. c. 6, 18, 13. 



t Plin-. 8, 35 ; JElian, 9, 23. ** PiixX. 8, 35. 



