112 ON THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF SERPENTS. 



serpent wliicli avc know under this name ; Cuvier sup- 

 poses, with reason, that the Boa of Pliny* is but a great 

 Coluber of Italy, probably the Coluber quaterradiatus. 

 I have reason for believing that our Vipera Echis, the 

 head of which is often ornamented with a white spot, has 

 served for the type of the Basilisk of the Cyreniaca de- 

 scribed by Pliny ; "I" it is supposed that the Hydrus of the 

 Roman naturalist X is founded on our Tropidonotus 

 NatrLx ; but iELL\N.§ under the name of sea-snake, has 

 incontestably described the Dipsas ; lastly, the Paria, and 

 other serpents, of which classic authors make mention, are 

 too vaguely indicated to be referred to their types. 



Those who seek for more detailed information on tlie 

 knowledge which the ancients had of serpents, have only 

 to consult the works of the learned Gessner, who has also 

 collected in his work all the fables which have been writ- 

 ten on these animals in the middle ages. We omit such 

 observations, of very little real interest to science, which 

 can never acquire solidity tlirough such works as those of 

 Aldrovandus and Johnston — complications made w^ith- 

 out taste and without genius, and in which one sees repeated 

 the innumerable errors of their predecessors, whether it be 

 the prejudices which have disfigured tlie history of Ophi- 

 ology, or the description of those chimerical beings named 

 Dragons, whicli those learned persons have not failed to 

 illustrate bv fisrures. 



Ray was the first w^ho essayed to give a sort of classifi- 

 cation of serpents ; but his system, founded on an insecure 

 basis, has been long abandoned. It was not till the fol- 

 lo^ving century that the Natural History of Serpents, by 

 his countryman Owen, appeared — a book wTitten without 

 judgment, and abounding in erroneous and fabulous 

 stories. 



Several delineators of objects of natural history, about 

 the same period, distinguished themselves by the publica- 

 tion of collections of figures more accurate than had been 

 furnished by their predecessors. We ought to cite, in the 



* Plix. 8, 14. t Plin. 8, 23. 



t L. c. 29, 22. § L. c. 16, 8. 



