The Zoology of Herodotus 



occasionally visits this country, to be, of course, 

 shot by unscientific "record" hunters. 



The winged snakes which formed the prey of 

 this beneficent bird are, in the view of many, the 

 most outrageous of Herodotean impossibilities. 

 Now, no one would assert that real flying ser- 

 pents ever could or did exist, or that Herodotus 

 ever saw their bones, or that the puny ibis could 

 have been an efficient exterminator of such crea- 

 tures. But it must be recollected that an air- 

 traversing snake is not an utterly inconceivable 

 animal ; we have the flying lizard, which glides 

 through the air for some distance, supported by 

 the parachute formed by the skin connecting its 

 elongated ribs. A similar rib-supported expan- 

 sion of skin forms the "hood" of the cobra. 

 These things being so, a parachutic arboreal 

 serpent is not an impossible animal, although 

 there may be no evidence for its existence. It 

 is also possible that there was a belief about the 

 Egyptian cobra similar to that which now obtains 

 in some places about the Indian one ; this makes 

 the snake in its old age grow very short in the 

 body, the "hood" meanwhile expanding into 

 wings, wherewith the reptile flits about on a 

 mission of destruction. That Herodotus saw 

 some bones is no doubt correct enough ; that 

 he was wrong in his determination of them is 



not wonderful, for in later ages the bones of 



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