VIPERA CERASTES. 73 



a phial by a careful hand. Viewed through a glass, it appears not 

 perfectly transparent or pellucid. I should imagine it had other 

 reservoirs than the bag under the tooth, for I compelled it to 

 scratch eighteen pigeons upon the thigh, as quickly as possible, 

 and all died nearly in the same interval of time ; but, I confess, the 

 danger attending the dissection of the head of this creature, made me 

 so cautious that any observation I should make upon these parts, 

 would be less to be depended upon. I kept two of these last- 

 mentioned creatures (the Cerastes) in a glass jar, such as are. used for 

 keeping sweetmeats in, for two years, without having given them 

 any food— they did not sleep, that I observed, in winter, but cast 

 their skins the last days of April. The Cerastes moves with great 

 rapidity, and in all directions, forward, backward, and sideways. 

 When he inclines to surprise any one who is too far from him, he 

 creeps with his side towards the person, and his head averted, till 

 judging his distance, he turns round, springs upon him, and fastens 

 upon the part next to him ; for it is not true what is said, that the 

 Cerastes does not le or spring. I saw one of them at Cairo, in 

 the house of Julian and Rosa, crawl up the side of a box, in which 

 there were many, and there lie still, as if hiding himself, till one of 

 the people who brought them to us came near him, and though in 

 a very disadvantageous posture, sticking as it were perpendicular to 

 the side of the box, he leaped near the distance of three feet, and 

 fastened between the man's fore-finger and thumb, so as to bring 

 the blood. The fellow showed no signs either of pain or fear, and 

 we kept him with us full four hours, without his applying any sort 

 of remedy, or his seeming inclined to do so. To make myself 

 assured that the animal was in its perfect state, I made the man 

 hold him by the neck, so as to force him to open his mouth, and 

 lacerate the thigh of a pelican, a bird I had tamed, as big as a swan. 

 The bird died in about thirteen minutes, though it was apparently 

 affected in about fifty seconds ; and we cannot think this a fair 

 trial, because a very few minutes before it had bit the man, and so 

 discharged a part of its virus, and it was made to scratch the 

 pelican by force, without any irritation or action of its own." 



Mr. Bruce vouches, from his own observation, for the reality of 

 the incantation of serpents. At Cairo, he saw a man take a 



