THE TONGUE OF A SNAKE. loi 



King Philip, 'France, thou may*st hold a serpent by the 

 tongue ! ' 



Not snakes only, but toads, lizards, spiders, and other 

 ' creeping things,' were thought venomous in Shakspeare's 

 time. 



Song in Midsummer Nighfs Dream : * You spotted 

 snakes, with double tongue/ Then, in appeal to the 

 ' serpents ' not to injure the Fairy Queen : * Newts and 

 blindworms, do no wrong.' 



The nearest approach to a scientific work on natural 

 history written in English at that time was a curious 

 volume published in 1608, in whose folio pages may be seen 

 most astonishing ' Serpentes,' combinations of worms and 

 feathered fowls, saurian, ophidian, and batrachian, wonder- 

 fully adorned with horns, gills, wings, spear-shaped or forked 

 tongues, and arrow-shaped tails. The zoological illus- 

 trations of that work give us some idea of what a snake 

 was supposed to be. Among them is one with a human 

 head, and another with a crown, because he is * the King of 

 Serpentes for his Magnitude or Greatnesse.' There is also a 

 ' Dragon ' with horns, wings, scales, claws, two rows of robust 

 teeth, and an arrow-headed tongue. Mingled fable and 

 fancy with some few facts, these anomalies are solemnly 

 described as * The Naturall Historie of Serpentes,' the said 

 serpents including bees, wasps, * frogges,' toads, earthworms, 

 lizards, spiders, etc., and a 'cockatrice.' 



The author, E. Topsell, addresses the 'gentle and pious 

 Reader ' on the ' publishing of this Treatise of Venomous 

 Beasts,' and more particularly of ' Serpentes, Divine, Morall, 

 and Naturell, their Poyson and Bitings, since the gentle and 



