264 INTRODlTCTIOy TO ZOOLOGY 



follows without communicating any motion to them ; and in 

 this way a snake will often steal across a meadow, or through 

 a thicket, unperccived by a person standing at a little distance."* 

 In contrast with the clear and simple statement here given of 

 the movements of the common Enarlish Snake, it is interesting 

 to place the magnificent description so well known to every 

 reader of " Paradise Lost " : — 



" So spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed 

 In serpent, inmate bad ! and toward Eve 

 Addressed his way ; not with indented wave 

 Prone on the ground as since, but on his rear 

 Circular base of rising folds, that tower'd 

 Fold above fold, a surging maze ! his head 

 Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes. 

 With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect 

 Amidst his circling spires that on the grass 

 Floated redundant." — Book ix. 



Like many other now exploded specifics, the flesh of Ser- 

 pents, or the liquid, especially wine, in which they were in- 

 fused, was held of peculiar efficacy for the cure of disease, and 

 as an antidote to poison. These ideas, preposterous as they 

 may now appear, were not discarded until the last century was 

 far advanced. In Dr. Owen's work on Serpents, published in 

 London in 1672, we are informed that " their flesh, either 

 roasted or boiled, the physicians unanimously prescribe, as 

 an excellent restorative, particulai-ly in consumptions and 

 leprosy." 



There is another reptile equally inoffensive, and not less 

 maligned than some already mentioned— the Blind-worm, or 

 Slow-worm of Britain, described as the " eyeless venom'd 

 worm " by Shakspeare. Yet it has in fact no poison fangs, and 

 is naturally of so timid and gentle a disposition, that only under 

 circumstances of great provocation will it attempt to bite. It 

 is unknown in Ireland; but in Scotland we have seen it 

 broken in two by the blow of a slight rod, thus illustrating the 

 correctness of the Linnsan appellation — Anguis fragilis — the 

 Fragile Snake. 



To the systematic naturalist this creature is interesting from 

 its exhibiting in certain points the character of two distinct 

 classes of reptiles. The body is destitute of legs, in that re- 

 spect resembling the true Serpents, while at the same time the 



* Magazine of Natural History, 1838, p. 479. 



