COLUBER. 



graceful. If we were to take the degradation of the 

 serpent, in point of shape, in a literal sense, we would 

 also require to take its feeding in the same. Now, 

 the metaphorical denunciation against the serpent is, 

 that it shall "eat dust" as well as crawl on its belly ; 

 and we know from observation, that there is no ser- 

 pent whatever which subsists upon this species of 

 aliment. By far the greater majority of serpents prey 

 upon live animals of some description or other ; and 

 the part which they thus perform in wild nature is a 

 very important one, especially in warm regions, where 

 the production of small life is so abundant and so 

 rapid, that, were it not for some such a race of beings 

 as the serpents, the system of nature could hardly 

 be carried on. 



It may not be amiss, as tending in part to remove 

 the obloquy under which this order of animals lies, and 

 the horror which the vulgar have in general of them, 

 to mention very shortly the meaning of the word " ser- 

 pent" in the passage above alluded to. It means " self 

 conceit," or a following of one's own appetites not only 

 without any regard to right and wrong, but with a 

 knowledge that the gratification of the appetite is not 

 right ; and the denunciation is directed not against 

 any species of ophidian reptile, but against this figu- 

 rative serpent the corruption of the human heart, or 

 the perverseness of human actions. " Upon thy belly 

 shall thou go," is the declaration of what we perceive 

 every day to be true ; namely, that they who once 

 break through the laws of justness and propriety in 

 the gratification of their bodily appetites, lose their 

 intellectual character, and become the slaves of their 

 own animal propensities, for the whole of which the 

 belly is often used as a figurative and certainly a very 

 appropriate expression. So also the eating of dust 

 means nothing more than that those who thus degrade 

 their intellectual nature, and become mere animals in 

 habit, can have no possession, and no feeling of the 

 value of any possession, except what is connected 

 with gross material indulgences, the figurative name 

 for which, is very often the dust of the ground ; and 

 this dust, in the sense in which it is thus used, is a 

 very appropriate name it means vegetable mould, or 

 that species of earth which is most favourable to the 

 growth of plants ; and we need not add that this 

 mould is the primary element in the support both of 

 animals and of vegetables, the only substances which 

 can gratify the appetites of man. 



These remarks are not foreign to the subject in 

 hand, because the genus coluber contains those ser- 

 pents which are more generally distributed over the 

 world, most numerous, most beautiful in their colours, 

 and most disposed to remain near the habitations of 

 man, and we may almost say absolutely court human 

 society. Though they belong to different classes of 

 animals, differ much in their forms, in their mode of 

 production, and in their way of life, yet, if we take 

 those differences along with us, we shall find that 

 there is a considerable analogy between those serpents 

 and the cats. They inhabit different kinds of places 

 no doubt ; and, generally speaking, they are better 

 swimmers, and much more aquatic in their habits than 

 the feline race, but they resemble these in the facility 

 with which they glide through tangled places, and the 

 certainty with which they capture small quadrupeds, 

 birds, and other little animals, especially different 

 kinds of mollusca, which would not leave a single 

 green leaf in the more humid brakes of the warm 

 latitudes, if it were not for the labours of these ser- 



pents. Those places are very generally so close and 

 tangled, that nothing but a serpent can penetrate 

 them ; and thus, though there are many large birds 

 which ply diligently as scavengers in the tropical 

 countries, they can only prey in places which are 

 comparatively open ; and thus, though they might 

 and do pick up the dead bodies of those small ani- 

 mals, which are subject to casualties during the vio- 

 lence of the season, and also catch a good number of 

 strays, they leave what may be considered as the 

 nurseries of small animals wholly untouched ; and 

 thus the serpents become the true regulators of their 

 numbers. 



When we compare the species of this genus with 

 each other, and take along with them the boas, which 

 though they have distinctive characters in the systems 

 of natural history yet very much resemble the colu- 

 bers in their habits, we find that though there is not, 

 strictly speaking, a polar race, as there is in the cat 

 tribe, yet there is, as in these, an increase, both in 

 numbers and in size and strength, as we approach 

 those regions of the world where the action of life, 

 both animal and vegetable, is at a maximum. 



A very little reflection will suffice to convince the 

 reader that there can be no species of serpent well 

 adapted for inhabiting the land in the extremes of the 

 polar countries. Serpents are covered with scales, 

 which, even admitting that they are composed of the 

 same materials as fur or feathers, are, from the very 

 fact of their being in solid plates, while the others are 

 loose and flocculent, much better conductors of heat. 

 The consequence is, that serpents are capable of en- 

 during only a limited range of temperature, in which 

 respect they bear no inconsiderable resemblance to 

 scaly fishes, and no attempted domestication would 

 probably succeed in enabling a serpent to accommo- 

 date itself to difference of climates, or of seasons, to 

 any extent at all comparable with that of which furred 

 and feathered animals are capable ; neither would it, 

 perhaps, be possible to preserve them in a state of 

 activity during those seasons of the year at which they 

 are naturally dormant. We shall, however, be better 

 able to notice those physiological characters of ser- 

 pents which adapt them to different latitudes, and to 

 peculiar localities, when we have the whole class be- 

 fore us in the general article OPHIDIA ; therefore we 

 shall only farther remark that in the north-west of 

 Europe, the species of coluber are very rare, that they 

 increase as we proceed southward and eastward, and 

 probably extend farther into Siberia than they do in- 

 to corresponding climates into western Europe. In 

 those northerly places, however, the individuals are 

 of small size ; but in the Oriental Archipelago, they 

 rival if they do not exceed the Boas of the American 

 continent ; and, though many of the stories told of 

 them must be considered as exaggerated, yet it is cer- 

 tain that in Java, and the adjacent islands, they are 

 very formidable animals capable of crushing deer and 

 goats to death in their folds, and of swallowing an 

 animal several times the diameter of their own body. 



All the members of the genus are, indeed, remark- 

 able for their capacity in swallowing. Their jaws, of 

 which nearly a corresponding description will be found 

 in the article BOA, are capable not only of opening 

 till the whole gape is a plane, but of considerably 

 more distension both ways, by means of the elastic 

 cartilage which unites the different bones of the jaws. 

 The smaller species subsist upon frogs, small lizards, 

 mollusca, mice, and other little animals. And in 



