7§ ikfo=<£itc$Iantis Earttirs. 



Bruifes wondrous foveraign. Their Hearts fwallowed 

 frefh, is a good Antidote againft their Venome, and their 

 Liver (the Gall taken out) bruifed and applied to their 

 Bitings is a prefent Remedy. 



23 and 114 of the Voyages. Wood justly says of this " most poisonous and dan- 

 gerous creature," that it is " nothing so bad as the report goes of him. . . . He is 

 naturally," he continues, "the most sleepy and unnimble creature that lives; 

 never offering to leap or bite any man, if he be not trodden on first : and it is 

 their desire, in hot weather, to lie in paths where the sun may shine on them; 

 where they will sleep so soundly, that I have known four men to stride over 

 them, and never awake her. . . . Five or six men," he adds, " have been bitten 

 by them; which, by using of snake-weed" (compare the preface to this, p. 119), 

 "were all cured; never any yet losing his life by them. Cows have been bitten; 

 but, being cut in divers places, and this weed thrust into their flesh, were cured. 

 I never heard of an3 r beast that was yet lost by any of them, saving one mare " 

 (/. c). Of other serpents, Wood mentions the black snake; and Josselyn, in his 

 Voyages (A c), speaks of " infinite numbers, of various colours; " and especially 

 of "one sort that exceeds all the rest; and that is the checkquered snake, having 

 as many colours within the checkquers shadowing one another as there are in a 

 rainbow." He says again, " The water-snake will be as big about the belly as the 

 calf of a man's leg" which is, perhaps, the water-adder. Josselyn adds, "I never 

 heard of any mischief that snakes did " (/. c.) ; and so Wood : " Neither doth any 

 other kind of snakes " (the rattle-snake always excepted, as no doubt dangerous 

 when trodden on) "molest either man or beast." There are perhaps no worse 

 prejudices in common life, than those which breed cruelty. In the Voj'ages (p. 

 23), our author makes mention "of a sea-serpent, or snake, that lay quoiled up 

 like a cable upon a rock at Cape Ann. A boat passing by with English aboard, 

 and Uvo Indians, they would have shot the serpent : but the Indians disswaded 

 them ; saying, that, if he were not kill'd outright, they would be all in danger of 

 their lives." This was from " some neighbouring gentlemen in our house, who 

 came to welcome me into the countrey ; " and it seems, that, " amongst variety of 

 discourse, they told me also of a young lyon (not long before) killed at Piscat- 

 away by an Indian ; " which, indeed, was possibly not without foundation. And 

 as # to the serpent, compare a Report of a Committee of the Linnsan Society of 

 New England relative to a large marine animal, supposed to be a serpent, seen 

 near Cape Ann, Mass., in August, 1S17 (Boston, 1S17) ; which contains also a 

 full account of a smaller animal — supposed not to differ, even in species, from 

 the large — which was taken on the rocks of Cape Ann. — See also Storer, Report 

 on the Reptiles of Mass. ; Supplement, p. 410. 



