86 ON THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF SERPENTS. 



script! ve part of our work detached observations on this 

 subject.* 



OF MONSTROUS SERPENTS. 



Monstrous serpents have been, though rarely, observed : 

 to this number pertain the Coluber ^^'ith two heads taken 

 on the banks of the Arno, which Redi kept alive during 

 several weeks, and of which he has furnished a description 

 in his works.t Lacepede has collected several other facts 

 relative to snakes with two heads, and gives a figure of a 

 similar individual preserved in the galleries of the Museum 

 of Paris. J The figure of a third serpent with two heads is 

 given by Edwards. § M. de Froriep possesses also a spe- 

 cimen, in which two heads and two tails are perfectly se- 

 parated. M. MitchellII makes mention of several monsters 

 of this sort, observed in North America ; the heads of 

 these subjects being, more or less, united together, so that 

 some of them had but three eyes, and a single lower jaw. 

 In the same country, a serpent was found of probably the 

 species called Coluber constrictor, of which all the parts 

 were so disfigured by disease that it was imagined they had 

 found, in that monster, the famous sea-snake of the north, 

 so celebrated for its vast size. See an extract of the dis- 

 sertation published at Boston on this subject, in the Journal 

 de Physique, volume Ixxxvi. p. 297- 



[The translator has a drawing of a small specimen of 

 Vivera berus with two distinct heads, found in Dumfries- 

 shire. The specimen was shewn to him by the young gen- 

 tleman who found it about 4 years ago. In Bancroft's 

 Guiana is figured another snake with two heads.] 



* [These, and many similar remarks, chiefly refer to the second part 

 of the author's woi'k on •' The Physiognomy of Serpents/' which, I fear 

 in the present low state of this branch of natural history in Britain, 

 will not readily find a publisher. — Tr.] 



t Observatio, iii. p. 1. 



* Quadrup. ovipar., ii. pi. 20, fig. 2, p. 475. 

 § Birds, pi. £07. 



IJ Silliman's Journal, X. p. 48. See /*ts, p. 1046, 



