NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 367 



on it ; but the captain would not permit them to eat 

 what he regarded as disgusting food, though they de- 

 clared that it was exceedingly good and wholesome. 

 The negroes were right and the captain was wrong : the 

 flesh of most serpents is very good and nourishing, to say 

 nothing of the restorative qualities attributed to it, and 

 noticed in a former paper. 



One of the most curious accounts of the benefit derived 

 by man from the serpent race, is related by Kircher (see 

 Mtis. Worm.), where it is stated that near the village of 

 Sassa, about eight miles from the city of Bracciano, in 

 Italy, there is a hole or cavern called la Grotta delli 

 Serpi, which is large enough to contain two men, and is 

 all perforated with small holes like a sieve. From these 

 holes, in the beginning of spring, issue a prodigious num- 

 ber of small, different coloured serpents, of which every 

 year produces a new brood, but which seem to have no 

 poisonous quality. Such persons as are afflicted with 

 scurvy, leprosy, palsy, gout, and other ills to which flesh 

 is heir, were laid down naked in the cavern, and their 

 bodies being subjected to a copious sweat from the heat 

 of the subterraneous vapours, the young serpents were 

 said to fasten themselves on every part, and extract by 

 sucking every diseased or vitiated humour ; so that after 

 some repetitions of this treatment, the patients were re- 

 stored to perfect health. Kircher, who visited this cave, 

 found it warm, and answering in every way the descrip- 

 tion he had of it. He saw the holes, heard a murmuring 

 hissing noise in them, and though he owns that he missed 

 seeing the serpents, it not being the season of their 

 creeping out, yet he saw great numbers of their exuviae 

 or sloughs, and an elm growing hard by laden with them. 

 The discovery of this air-Schlangenbad was said to have 

 been made by a leper going from Rome to some baths 

 near this place, who, fortunately, losing his way, and 

 being benighted, turned into this cave. Finding it very 



