4O The Poets and Nature. 



might be the asp or "horned cerastes dire" if the poet had 

 not naturalised it in America. But Campbell is at all times 

 delightfully incorrect in his natural history. 



King's " horned serpents " that Megsera wears, are perhaps 

 the cerastes ; but Moore, misunderstanding the name of 

 another species, makes an amusingly characteristic error as 

 to its meaning. He says : 



" The smooth glass-snake, gliding o'er my way, 

 Shows the dim moonlight through his scaly form " 



evidently thinking the reptile got its name from being trans- 

 parent. But it is as opaque as any other worm, and owes 

 the prefix to its exceeding brittleness. Moreover, the " glass- 

 snakes " are hardly snakes at all, but only snake-like lizards. 

 Sir William Jones has an Indian "serpent dire," "of size 

 minute, with necklace brown and freckled side," which is 

 perhaps the Daboia elegans. More uncertain is the "blue 

 serpent" with which, in the satire of Rufinus, the Fury 

 "girds her waist around," after binding her hair with an 

 adamant.^ 



The water-snake, it might have been thought, would have 

 been a very attractive image to poets, but such is not the 

 case. It is but seldom met with, and even on those infre- 

 quent occasions without any attempt to take advantage of 

 so masterly a touch of nature. Moore's fancy imagines 

 many a " water-snake " slumbering in Lake Erie : 



" Basking in the web of leaves 

 Which the water-lily weaves." 



But it is only in Shelley, the poet of the snake, that this 

 serpent meets with competent recognition. Thus : 



"The snake, 



The pale snake that, with eager breath, 

 Creeps here his noontide thirst to slake, 



1 The Fury, having performed these feats of the toilette, proceeds to 

 Phlegethon, " whose pitchy waves are flakes of rolling flame ! " 



