168 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



which was killed in the Vatican in the time of the em- 

 peror Claudius, andattefted by Pliny, an author almoft 

 cotemporary, in the belly of which an entire child was 

 found. But, above all, where has there been feen, 

 even in the mod folitary woods of America, a ferpent 

 which can in any manner be compared with that mo ft 

 enormous and prodigious one of one hundred and twen- 

 ty feet in length, feen in Africa at the time of the firfr. 

 Punic war, and killed with war machines by the army of 

 Attilius Regulus, the fkin and jaw-bones of which were 

 preferved in a temple of Rome, until the war of Nu- 

 mantia, according to the teflimonies of Livy, Pliny, and 

 other Roman hiftorians ? We know very well that fome 

 American hiftorian fays, that a certain gigantic fpecies 

 of ferpents is to be found in the woods, which attract 

 men with their breath, and fwallow them up ; but we 

 know alfo that feveral hiftorians, both ancient and mo- 

 dern, report the fame thing of the ferpents of Afia, and 

 even fomething more. Megafthenes, cited by Pliny, 

 faid, that there were ferpents found in Afia, fo large, 

 that they fwallowed entire flags and bulls (/7z). Metro- 

 dorus, cited by the fame author, affirms, that in Alia 

 there were ferpents which, by their breath, attracted 

 birds, however high they were, or quick their flight. 

 Among the moderns, Gemelli, in vol. V. of his Tour of 

 the World, when he treats of the animals of the Philip- 

 pine 



(m) Megafthenes fcribit, in India ferpentes in tantam magnitudinem adole- 

 fcere, ut folidos hauriant cervos taurofque. Metrodorus circa Rhyndacum am- 

 nem in ponto ut fupervolantes quamvis alte perniciterque, alites hauftu raptas ab- 

 forbeant. Nota eft in Punicis bellis ad flumen Bagradam an Regulo imper. ba- 

 leftis tormentifque ut oppidum aliquod expugnata Terpens CXX pedum longitudi- 

 nis. Pellis ejus maxillaeque ufque ad bellum Numantinum duravere Romas in 

 templo. Faciunt his fidem in Italia appellatae boae in tantem amplitudinem exo 

 untes ut Divo Claudio, principe occifae in Vaticano folidus in alvo fpe&atus fit ill- 

 fans. Plin. Hift. Nat. lib. viii. cap. 14. 



