268 CURIOUS CREATURES. 



when the sun is in the sign of Cancer, serpents suffer 

 the greatest tortures. . . . 



" It is said that while the sun is passing through the 

 sign of Cancer, the dead bodies of the crabs, which are 

 lying on the shore, are transformed into serpents." 



THE SEA-SERPENT. 



Of the antiquity of the belief in the Sea-Serpent there 

 can be no doubt, for it is represented on the walls of 

 the Assyrian palace at Khorsabad, more than once, in 

 the sculpture representing the voyage of Sargon to 



Cyprus, thus giving it an authentic antiquity of over 

 2600 years : but as its existence must then have been 

 a matter of belief, it naturally comes that it must be 

 much older than that. 



Aristotle, who wrote nearly 400 years later, speaks 

 of them, and their savage disposition : " In Libya, the 

 serpents, as it has been already remarked, are very large. 

 For some persons say that as they sailed along the coast, 

 they saw the bones of many oxen, and that it was evident 

 to them that they had been devoured by the serpents. 

 And, as the ships passed on, the serpents attacked the 

 triremes, and some of them threw themselves upon one of 

 the triremes, and overturned it." 



These, together with Sargon's Sea-Serpent, were doubt- 

 less marine snakes, which are still in existence, and are 

 found in the Indian Ocean, but the larger ones seem to 



