318 CHAPTER XLIV. 



fortunate enough to find it wild. It frequents damp 

 places or swamps ; the embouchure of the Var would 

 be a good place to look for it. The brothers Gal, 

 who keep the natural history shop in the Corso, Nice, 

 showed me one which they caught at Beaulieu. It 

 cannot be very common, for many of the natives 

 are not aware of its existence. In Sicily, where 

 this harmless little animal is abundant, it is 

 regarded as poisonous and destroyed by the natives. 

 When frightened, it clings to the decaying stem 

 or leaf of some marsh plant, hoping thus to 

 escape notice. It is very timid, and no provocation 

 will make it bite. Seps is viviparous. The Nicois 

 name of the animal is " Aguglioun de prat." The 

 Italians call it " Cicigna " or " Cecelia." 



In the " Prometheus Unbound," Act iii., Scene i, 

 Shelley mentions the Seps : 



"All my being, 



Like him whom the Numidian Seps did thaw 

 Into a dew with poison, is dissolved, 

 Sinking through its foundations." 



On this passage, a friend, who is a brilliant 

 lecturer on English Literature, gives me the following 

 note : Shelley alludes to verse 763 of Lucan's " Phar- 

 salia," where the army of Cato, passing through the 

 Libyan desert, is plagued by poisonous snakes worst 

 among them the " exiguus Seps," which fixed its fangs 

 in the leg of one Sabellus, and inflicted a fatal wound, 

 so that his body seemed to dissolve and putrefy : 

 " membra natant sanie." 



Visitors to the Riviera need not be alarmed : 

 there is nothing evil about the "exiguus Seps" 

 excepting his ill-omened name. Dr. Alfred Eussel 



