192 REPTILIA. 



breath, or even of charming them, as it Is called, by which they are com- 

 pelled to leap into its mouth; this, however, is not so, and the reptile in 

 question seizes its prey while under the agitation and terror produced by 

 its appeai'ance. 



In most of the species there are scales on the head similar to those on 

 the back. 



The C. horridus or the Diamond Rattlemahe, the C. durissus or the 

 Banded Rattlesnake, and the C. miliaris or the Ground Rattlesnake, a smaller 

 species, but the most dangerous of the three, all inhabit the United States. 

 The most common is the durissus,- the miliaris, although furnished like the 

 others with an apparatus of three or four cornets at the end of the tail, can 

 make no noise with them. The plates on the head are arranged as in the 

 genus Coluber. 



ViPERA, Daud. 

 The Vipers, most of which were confounded with the Colubers by Linnseus, 

 on account of their double sub-caudal plates, require to be separated from 

 them from the circumstance of their having poisonous fangs. There are 

 also some serpents which naturally belong to this division, whose sub-cau- 

 dal plates are either wholly or partially simple- They are all distinguished 

 from the Rattlesnakes by the absence of the pits behind the nostrils. 



Vip. brachyura, Cuv. (The Minute Viper.) The intensity and activity 

 of its poison render it one of the most terrible of the genus. The genus of 

 the Vipers is now variously subdivided. To one of these subgenera, Naia, 

 belongs the celebrated 



Col. haje, h. Greenish bordered with brownish. The jugglers of Egypt, 

 by pressing on the nape of the neck with their finger, throw it into a kind 

 of catalepsy which renders it stiff and immovable, or turns it into a rod, as 

 they term it. Its habit of raising itself up when approached, induced the 

 ancient Egyptians to believe that it was the guardian of the fields it inhab- 

 ited. They made it the emblem of the protecting divinity of the world, 

 and sculptured it on each side of a globe upon the gates of their temples. 

 It is indubitably the serpent described by the ancients under the name of 

 the ^sp of Egypt, Mp of Cleopatra, &c. 



In addition to these two tribes of Serpents, properly so styled, a 

 third has lately been recognized, in which the organization and ar- 

 mature of the jaws are nearly the same as in the non-venomous ser- 

 pents, but where the first maxillary tooth, larger than the others, is 

 perforated for the transmission of the poison, as in the venomous 

 serpents with isolated fangs. 



These Serpents form two genera, Bungarxjs and Hydrus, dis- 

 tinguisiied, like those of the two neighbouring families, by the cover- 

 ing of tlie abdomen and the under part of the tail. 



