6 
Most amphibians are rough, with a cold body, a ghastly color, cartilaginous skeleton, foul skin, 
fierce face, a meditative gaze, a foul odor, a harsh call, a squalid habitat, and terrible venom. Their 
Author has not, therefore, done much boasting on their account. 1 
A polymorphous nature has bestowed a double life on most of these amphibians: granting that 
some undergo metamorphosis and others cast off their old age. Some are born from eggs, 
whereas others bear naked young. Some live variously in dry or wet, whereas others hibernate 
half the year. Some overcome their prey with effort and cunning, whereas others lure the same 
prey to their jaws as if by magic. 
REPTILES. Footed and have flat-nude ears without ear lobes. They pursue various lives 
depending on their structure. The turtles are protected by their shell. The dracos 2 fly on wings, 
whereas lizards flee on feet, and frogs are hidden by location. Nor do they all lack venom, for 
example the toad, salamander, and gecko. 3 
SERPENTES. Footless and, lacking ears, are deaf. Lungs separate them from the fish , as do 
eggs in a chain and a divided penis. In short, the resemblance of the serpents with the lizards and 
that of the lizards with the frogs is so great as to admit no boundaries. Nature the savior has armed 
these creatures, cast onto the bare ground, ignorant of the use of limbs, and exposed to every 
harm, with weaponry bristling with dreadful venom, each unto its own kind. 
Page 195 
These weapons are very like teeth, but they are located on the outside edge of the upper jaw and 
can be extended and retracted at will. They are equipped with a sack of poison which they inject 
into the blood through a wound- the cause of dire results though in other respects it is inert. 
And thus these Catonians 4 have a poisonous bite and threaten death with the tooth; the cups 5 
lack death surely according to Redi 6 . Fie who was in charge armed (j) 46 only a tenth of the 
species, but lest those who were deprived of the weapons the others posessed should be 
miserable and rage too much, he wished them to be similar in shape so that all of them, of dubious 
identification, would be feared by all. But man's Benefactor gave to the people of India the 
mongoose along with the Ophiorhiza 7 , to the Americans the pig along with Senega 7 and to the 
Europeans the stork along with the olive. 
Should one wish a diagnosis for these, let him take it from the presence or absence of feet and 
from abdominal and caudal scutes 8 . But lest the number, taken from one and added to another, 
should confuse, it is useful to have each one numbered (Act. Stockh. 1752, p. 296). The length 
should be given to and from the anus and in some cases it should be by color. Be careful, 
however, lest the tail, once cut off, has been regenerated. 
NANTES, the aquatic finned ones.(Chondropterygios, or the so-called cartilaginous fishes). A 
class of amphibians that have arbitrary lungs*, although it is true that they are not to be seen. They 
do not breathe with free, but with joined gills. The males lie upon the females with a divided penis! 
The eggs are in a chain with young, the skin is foul, the bones and the rest are cartilaginous. Nor 
are they entirely unschooled in venom, as witness the sting ray and the electric ray. 
AMPFIIBIOLOGI are the smallest of them all, but none are true. Seba has collected and delineated 
a tremendous number of them unknown to himself, but he multiplied them and described them 
but minimally. Catesby sketched a few serpents more beautifully than he made notes about them. 
