360 LEAVES FROM THE 



From thence a chaplet shall be wove 

 To grace the youth I dearest love. 

 Then, ages hence, when thou no more 

 Shalt glide along the sunny shore. 

 Thy copied beauties shall be seen ; 

 Thy vermeil red and hving green 

 In mimic folds thou shalt display : 

 Stay, lovely, fearful adder, stay! 



To be sure, poets as well as doctors differ ; and Cole- 

 ridge, in ' that singularly wild and beautiful poem,' tells 



us that 



A snake's small eye bhnks dull and sly. 



And dull it is sometimes, but only before moulting, for 

 the skin of the cornea comes off with the rest of the 

 slough. When the serpent comes out in his new coat, 

 with its bright eye and elegant action, it is as different 

 from its former self as Talleyrand in solitary dishabille 

 was from Talleyrand dressed in a brilliant assembly, 

 through whose crowded mazes he would wind his way, his 

 very lameness lending grace to his gently undulating 

 progress. 



Those who define a serpent as an apod, or footless 

 animal, carry their definition too far. The large con- 

 stricting serpents, and not only those but eryx and toT- 

 trix, are furnished with the rudiments of hinder extre- 

 mities, which appear to have escaped the notice of Sir 

 Everard Home, but did not escape that of Dr. Mayer. 

 Observing the spur, or nail, on each side of the vent in 

 the ho'idcB, the Doctor examined further, and found it to 

 be a true nail, in the cavity of which is a little semi-car- 

 tilaginous bone, or ungual phalanx, articulated with ano- 

 ther much better developed bone, which is concealed 

 under the skin. This second bone of the rudimentary 

 foot presented an external thick condyle, with which the 

 ungual phalanx was articulated, and was furnished be- 

 sides with a smaller internal apophysis. Proceeding in 

 his investigation, he laid bare a rudimentary tibia, with 

 its muscles, and made oat a complete posterior limb, such 



