258 THE LOG OF THE SUN 



prey. The river Tigris, meaning literally the 

 river Arrow, is named thus from the swiftness 

 of its current. 



As to the names of reptiles it is, of course, to 

 the Romans that we are chiefly indebted, as in the 

 case of reptile from reptilus, meaning creeping; 

 and crocodile from dilus, a lizard. Serpent is also 

 from the Latin serpens, creeping, and this from 

 the old Sanskrit root, sarp, with the same mean- 

 ing. This application of the idea of creeping is 

 again found in the word snake, which originally 

 came from the Sanskrit naga. 



Tortoise harks back to the Latin tortus, mean- 

 ing twisted (hence our word tortuous) and came 

 to be applied to these slow creatures because of 

 their twisted legs. In its evolution through many 

 tongues it has suffered numbers of variations ; one 

 of these being turtle, which we use to-day to desig- 

 nate the smaller land tortoises. Terrapin and its 

 old forms terrapene and turpin, on the contrary, 

 originated in the New World, in the language of 

 the American Redskin. 



C obra-de-capello is Portuguese for hooded 

 snake, while python is far older, the same word 

 being used by the Greeks to denote a spirit, demon, 

 or evil-soothsayer. This name was really given 

 to designate any species of large serpent. Boa is 

 Latin and was also applied to a large snake, while 

 the importance of the character of size is seen, 

 perhaps, in our words bos and bovine* 



