218 OF SERPENTS. 



pents, who prepare their venom to destroy each other. With 

 this the savages poison their arms, and also prepare their re- 

 vengeful potions. The ancients were known to preserve it 

 for the purposes of suicide j and even among semi-barbarous 

 countries at this day, the venom of snakes is used as a philter. 



But, though the poison be justly terrible to us, it has been 

 given to very good purposes for the animal's own proper sup- 

 port and defence. Without this, serpents, of all other ani- 

 mals, would be the most exposed and defenceless : without 

 feet for escaping a pursuit, without teeth capable of inflicting 

 a dangerous wound, or without strength for resistance ; in- 

 capable, from their size, of finding security in very small 

 retreats, like the earth-worm, and disgusting all from their 

 deformity, nothing was left for them but a speedy extirpation. 

 But furnished as they are with powerful poison, every rank 

 of animals approach them with dread, and never seize them 

 but at an advantage. Nor is this all the advantage they de- 

 rive from it. The malignity of a few serves for the protection 

 of all. Though not above a tenth of their number are actu- 

 ally venomous, yet the similitude they all bear to each other 

 excites a general terror of the whole tribe ; and the uncer- 

 tainty of their enemies in which the poison chiefly resides, 

 makes even the most harmless formidable. Thus Providence 

 seems to have acted with double precaution ; it has given 

 some of them poison for the general defence of a tribe natu- 

 rally feeble ; but it has thinned the numbers of those which 

 are venomous, lest they should become too powerful for the 

 rest of animated nature. 



From these noxious qualities in the serpent kind, it is no 

 wonder that not only man, but beasts and birds carry on an 

 unceasing war against them. The ichneumon of the Indians, 

 and the peccary of America, destroy them in great numbers. 

 These animals have the art of seizing them near the head ; 

 and it is said that they can skin them with great dexterity. 

 The vulture and the eagle also prey upon them in great 

 abundance ; and often sousing down from the clouds, drop 

 upon a long serpent, which they snatch up, struggling an3 



