BooKVIU.] History of Nature. 19 



CHAPTER XIV. 

 Of very great Serpents, and those called Bo<z. L 



MEGASTHENES writeth that there are Serpents in India 

 which grow to such a Size that they are able to swallow 

 Stags or Bulls whole. Metrodorus saith that about the River 

 Rhyndacus, in Pontus, there are Serpents which catch and 

 devour the Fowls of the Air as they fly over them, however 

 high or rapid their Flight may be. It is well known that 

 Regulus, Imperator during the Wars against the Cartha- 

 ginians, near the River Bograda assailed a Serpent with his 

 Military Engines, the Balistae and Tormentum, as he would 

 have done to a Town ; and when Subdued, the Length of the 

 Serpent was found to be 120 Feet. The Skin and Jaws of 

 this Serpent were preserved in a Temple at Rome until the 

 War of Numantia. And this is rendered the more credible 

 from the Serpents that we see in Italy that are called Boae, 

 which increase to such Size, that in the Days of the Prince 

 Dlvus Claudius there was one of them killed in the 

 Vatican, within the Belly of which there was found an In- 

 fant Child. They are nourished at the first by the Milk of 

 the Cow, from whence they take their Name. As for other 

 Animals, which of late are often brought from all Parts into 

 Italy, it is needless for me to describe their Forms par- 

 ticularly. 



1 The monstrous serpents recorded by ancient authors, as Aristotle, 

 Virgil, Livy, Pliny, and others, were probably of the family of bose. 

 Pliny gives here the derivation of the name " boa," and Johnson, " Dei- 

 parse de Urseolo," and others observe that the name is derived not so 

 much from the power the animals have of swallowing oxen, as from a 

 strong opinion in old times of their following the herds, and sucking their 

 udders. Cuvier says the boae are among the largest of serpents. Some 

 of the species attain to thirty or forty feet in length, and become capable 

 of swallowing dogs, deer, and even oxen, after having crushed them in 

 their folds, and lubricated them with their saliva. The class of bose, as 

 anciently understood, has been divided by Cuvier into two, boa and 

 python : to which latter this author supposes that serpent to have belonged 

 which offered so formidable a resistance to the army of Regulus. Such 

 enormous serpents have long since ceased to exist in Italy. Wern. Club. 



