88 NAJA HAJE. 



Le Vipere Ilaje ; Daudin, Rept. vi. p. 41. L' Aspic; GeoJTroy, Rept. Egypt. 

 suppl. t. 3. 



This species, which has attained more than ordinary celebrity from 

 being supposed to be the animal whose poison the famous Cleo- 

 patra selected to terminate her existence, is found abundantly in 

 Lower Egypt, sometimes in hedges, and sometimes in the fields. 

 " It is universally known," says Mr. Griffiths, "that this illustrious 

 princess, abandoned by fortune, who had so long smiled upon her, 

 commanded that a reptile of this species should be brought to her 

 concealed in fruits and flowers, and caused it to bite her, to put a 

 period to her misfortunes. But after the fall of the Roman empire, 

 though Egypt still preserved some traces of the high renown of 

 Cleopatra, and though the name of the Aspic was not pronounced 

 without some degree of horror by all the people of Europe, still for 

 a long series of ages the true species of the serpent was unknown, 

 and the Cerastes, the Egyptian Viper, the Ammodytes,* and the 

 Lebetina, were taken for it. Bruce declared for the first of these 

 opinions, Forskal for the last, and Laurenti, Hasselquist, Daudin, 

 and Count La Cepede, for the second, which undoubtedly has 

 some plausibility, for it is well proved that under the name of ac-ms, 

 the ancients were acquainted with many venomous serpents abori- 

 ginal of Egypt. 



" It has been only since the expedition of the French to Egypt 

 that the true species of the Aspic has been ascertained. During 

 the period of that expedition, the French philosophers attached 

 to the army observed a species of ophidian, regarded as harmless 

 by Linneus and most herpetologists, but considered as extremely 

 venomous by the traveller Forskal. This ophidian is called haje 

 by the inhabitants, and recent travellers have incontestibly proved 

 that it is the true aspic of the ancients, which never inhabited 

 Europe ; for the reptile which some years since infested the forest 

 of Fontainbleau, and was called by this name, was nothing but a 



* The Coluber Ammodytes, Jacq. Coll. iv. t. 24, 20, a species greatly allied to the 

 Viper, from « hich it is distinguished by an erect process or wart at the tip of the muz- 

 zle. It is an extremely poisonous reptile, and inhabits the mountainous parts of 

 Illyria. 



