NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 215 



Dan shall bee a serpent by the way, an adder by the path, biting 

 the horse heeles, so that his rider shall fall backward.* 



The patriarch, by this comparison with the artful 

 cerastes, intimates that the Danites should have their 

 revenge upon their enemies, and extend their conquests 

 more by stratagem than open bravery. 



Nicander also refers to this habit of lying hid in the 

 sands, or in a wheel-track, and biting the horses or cattle 

 that pass near or over it. 



This African species-|- has the character of being able 

 to abstain from water longer than almost any other 

 serpent. Indolently nestled in the arid sand, long periods 

 elapse between the falling of the rain upon its abode. 

 The old French quatrain, printed under the Portrait de 

 la Ceraste, alludes to this abstinence : — - 



Ceste ceraste a comme deux cornettes 

 Dessus les yeux, et se passe de boire 

 Plus que serpent, qu'il est possible croire. 

 Rempliz sont de poison telles bestes.J 



Both the naia and the cerastes have been named as the 

 asp which saved Cleopatra from the degradation of a 

 Roman triumph ; but there can be little doubt that the 

 cerastes was the ' poor venomous fool ' to which the 

 Egyptian queen appealed Ho be angry and dispatch." 

 Some, indeed, declare that she did not apply the asp at 

 all, but inoculated herself with the poison by means of a 

 needle ; and Galen relates from other authors, that she 

 killed herself by pouring the venom of an asp into a 

 wound made in her arm by her own teeth. 



It seems, at first, to be a strange dispensation that 

 creatures should be sent on earth armed with venom, — 



* Barker's Bible, Gen. xlix. 17. 

 t It is found in the south as well as in the north of Afi'ica. 

 :j: Portraits d'Oyseaux, Serpens, ^'c, 1557. 



