170 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
produced by deep clear water when gazed on 
steadily and for a long time which may have given 
rise to the African superstition of the Icanti already 
mentioned. Among some North American tribes 
there also existed a belief in a serpent of enormous 
size that reposed at the bottom of some river or 
lake, and once every year rose to the surface showing 
a shining splendid stone on his head. 
The mountains, too, have their serpent-shaped 
guardians: thus, it was believed by the neigh- 
bouring tribes that a huge camoodi, or boa, rested 
its league-long coils on the flat top of the table 
mountain of Roraima in Venezuela. Doubtless a 
serpent of cloud and mist; of the white vapour 
that, forming at the summit, dropped down in a 
long coil, or crept earthwards along the deep 
fissures that score the precipitous sides. 
Other beliefs of this kind might be adduced, 
and other resemblances to the serpent’s form and 
motion in nature traced, but enough on this point 
has been said. If it is due to these resemblances 
that the savage is disposed to see the life and 
intelligent spirit he attributes to Nature, and to all 
natural objects, take the serpent form, may we 
not believe that the serpent-myths of the earlier 
civilised races originated in the same way? Doubt- 
less in many cases, with the development of the 
reasoning powers and the decay of the mythical 
faculty, the fable would be somewhat changed in 
form and embellished, and perhaps come at last 
to be regarded as merely symbolical. But sym- 
