96 BOOK OP NATURE LAID OPEN. 



times, when no food presents itself, exhibits an ab- 

 stemiousness that is astonishing. Indeed, a single 

 meal with many of the Snake kind seems to be the 

 adventure of a season ; and is an oceurrence for 

 which they have been lor weeks, nay, sometimes for 

 months, in patient expectation. Vipers are often 

 kept in boxes for six or eight months, without any 

 food whatever ; and there are small Serpents sent 

 over to Europe from Grand Cairo that live for se- 

 veral years without eating. 



The insti.nctive sagacity of an animal, said at first 

 to be more subtile than any beast of the field, and 

 whose wisdom was pointed out by the Saviour of 

 men as being necessary to be united with the harm- 

 lessness of the dove, in the dispositions of his disci- 

 ples, must naturally be expected to be very remark- 

 able, and it certainly is so, whether manifested in 

 the wonderful docility which some of these creatures 

 assume in a state of captivity the dancing serpent, 

 for instance, carried about by jugglers and strollers 

 in the East Indies, will raise their heads and part 

 of their bodies at the sound of music, moving them 

 in such a manner as to keep time with the instru- 

 ment, while their tails continue in a coil at the bot- 

 tom of the basket: the convenient places in which 

 they lie in wait fq^ the approach of their- prey the 

 commodious attitude in which those of the venomous 

 kind put themselves for darting at their victims; or 

 the subtle artifices to which these of the more harm- 

 less kind have recourse in eluding an enemy. Ser- 

 pents the most venomous will suddenly spring up 



