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B A S I L I S C U S. 



The basilisk of antiquity (and it was gravely de- 

 scribed by Pliny and Galen among the ancients, and 

 has been so by Lobo, Prosper Alpirii, and Aldrovandi, 

 among the moderns) was a terrible creature. Among 

 the pools and lakes of that land of marvels which gave 

 source to the mighty flood of the Nile, it reigned in 

 terrible majesty ; but it reigned in desolation. Its 

 name was derived from the Greek word /W/x/g^a/, 

 " to reign." It had eight feet, two large scales for 

 wings, was of a golden yellow, and its head 

 " The likeness of a kingly crown had on." 

 The taint which it communicated to the air was more 

 deadly than that fabled of the upas tree, and believed 

 by Dr. Darwin (though the Doctor was rather a 

 sceptic in some other matters, the proofs of which 

 were open to him) ; for no animal could breathe the 

 same air and live, and its glance was instant death, 

 even to the lion himself. Nature could not, of course, 

 form such a creature in the ordinary way ; but, like 

 the cockatrice the dread of which lias, perhaps, not 

 yet altogether ceased in this country it was hatched 

 by a serpent out of the egg of a cock ! 



Though adopted by the naturalists above men- 

 tioned in the plenitude of their credulity, and conti- 

 nued by their copyists, the basilisk of the ancients 

 was purely a poetical creation the emblem of regal 

 tyranny, in short ; and its origin was made unnatural, 

 and the scene of its dominion laid in the desert, 

 because to have spoken more plainly at home might 

 not have been altogether safe. It does not follow, 

 however, that the ancient poet who imagined the 

 fable believed in the material existence of the basilisk, 

 any more than Milton did in that of his personifica- 

 tions of Sin and Death, or Shakspeare in those 

 ghosts which he conjured up with such matchless 

 skill, and upon which the poetic beauty and the moral 

 grandeur of some of his best passages are made so 

 much to depend. 



We have deemed it advisable to notice, in this the first 

 striking instance of it which has occurred in the regular 

 order of the alphabet, the prostitution of poetic or alle- 

 gorical names to subjects in natural history ; and having 

 done so once for all, we shall shortly notice those basi- 

 lisks which come more properly within the scope of our 

 pages. 



BASILISCUS is a genus of the lizard family, and the 

 characters are the body rather thicker in proportion 

 to its length than in most of the order ; the head 

 short, and rather pear-shaped ; the legs thick and 

 strong, with five toes, armed with a claw on each foot ; 

 and the tail very long, and compressed or flattened 

 laterally. The back and upper part of the tail are 

 furnished with a crest, supported on rays something 

 resembling those of the fin of a fish, and capable of 

 being folded or expanded. The rays of this crest 

 are articulated to the spinous processes of the ver- 

 tebrae. The whole surface, including that of the 

 dorsal crest, is covered with small imbricated scales 

 of a rhomboidal form ; but there are no pores on the 

 inner sides of the thighs. The tongue is broad and 

 fleshy, and not protrusile, but rather united to the 

 urider-jaw for the greater part of its length. There 

 are small teeth both in the palate and the jaws. 



The structure of the mouth shows that these ani- 

 mals do not lie in wait for their food, but go in quest 

 of it. They are nimble and lively, as well as harm- 

 less and gentle. They jump with much agility from 

 branch to branch, in which they are assisted by the 

 dorsal crest, and probably also by the inflation of the 

 throat, which they have the power of doing at plea- 



sure. . Some of the accounts state th;it they can fly, 

 but that is a mistake. They leap far, but they have 

 no means of giving themselves a fresh impulse when 

 in the air, which is the essential operation in flying. 

 It is probable that they can swim, und that they then 

 use the crest on the tail in the same way as a fin. But 

 their habitation is on the dry land and in the forests, 

 to which their lively motions give a cheerful air. 



There are two known species, the one an American 

 and the other an Asiatic, but the places where they 

 are found are local, and bear some resemblance to 

 each other. 



The MITRED BASILISK (Basiliscus mitralus) is the 

 American species, and the following figure will give a 

 general notion of its form. 



Mitred Basilisk. 



This species has a long mitre-shaped crest on the 

 back part of the head, from which it gets the specific 

 name, and probably the generic one was given on 

 account of the same ;but it is not generally accurate, 

 as the Asiatic species has no crc?t. The crest is 

 membranous, with a cartilaginous support. This 

 species is of considerable size ; its general colour is 

 blue, with one white band behind the eyes, and ano- 

 ther behind the gape, the last with points inclining to 

 the shoulders. 



The AMBOYNA BASILISK (Basiliscus Amboincnsis) 

 differs from the former chiefly in wanting the mitre- 

 shaped crest on the head, and having that on the back 

 and tail pectinated or toothed like a comb ; the tail 

 also is less pointed than in the American species. 



These harmless and lively little creatures are na- 

 tives of those parts of the several continents which 

 receive the trade winds [see the article ATMOSPHERE] ; 

 and are, in consequence, not only abundant in all 

 kinds of life, but have more variety both of plants 

 and of animals, and more species which are peculiar 

 and unknown in any other region than any other por- 

 tions of the globe. The north-east coast of South 

 America, and the south-east of Asia, and particu- 

 larly Guiana and the lower part of the valley of the 

 Amazon in the former, and the Oriental islands in 

 the latter. 



The vegetation which the peculiar climates of 

 these lands, the most highly favoured by nature on 

 the whole surface of the globe, furnish as the founda- 

 tion of support for all the varied living tribes in 

 which they abound, is not a mere carpeting a sur- 

 face vegetation, such as we find in the meadows of 

 the more temperate lands : it is a forest vegetation, 

 one in which many races of animals cah take up their 

 abodes in the same trees, the one race inhabiting 

 above the other some among the roots of the tree, 

 some on the stems, and so on till we come to those that 

 inhabit the small twigs at the very top. All classes 

 of animals are found there ; but the peculiar .inhabit- 

 ants are chiefly climbers, climbing mammalia, climb- 

 ing birds, and climbing reptiles. The first of these 

 have not much beauty to boast of; but in colour the 



