Chap. 35.J 
SEEPEKTS. 
285 
assume the colour of the soil in which they conceal themselves. 
The different species of them are innumerable. The cerastes''^ 
has little horns, often four in number, projecting from the 
body, by the movement of which it attracts birds, while the 
rest of its body lies concealed The amphisbsena^^ has two 
heads, '^'^ that is to say, it has a second one at the tail, as 
though one mouth were too little for the discharge of all its 
venom. Some serpents have scales, some a mottled skin, and 
they are all possessed of a deadly poison. The jaculus^^ darts 
from the branches of trees ; and it is not only to our feet that 
the serpent is formidable, for these fly through the air even, 
just as though they were hurled from an engine.®^ The neck 
of the asp^^ puffs out,^^ and there is no remedy whatever 
''^ The cerastes, or horned serpent, is mentioned by Lucan, in his de- 
scription of serpents, Pharsalia, B. ix-. 1. 716. One of the Schohasts on 
Lucan relates a story that when Helen was eloping with Paris, she trod on 
the back of a cerastes, and broke it ; from which circumstance, the whole 
race moved with a crooked course. 
Cuvier has observed this animal burying itself in the sand, and has 
seen the motion of its horns, but does not credit its alleged power of at- 
tracting birds ; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 412. — B. 
''^ The amphisbsena is mentioned by Lucan, B. ix. 1. 719. " The dan- 
gerous amphisbsena, that moves on at either of its heads." 
The account of the two heads is obviously incorrect ; the idea has 
arisen from the two extremities being nearly of the same size and appear- 
ance. It has been supposed, that there were certain serpents, with tlie 
power of moving with equal facility in both directions ; and that the name, 
AjxcpifffSaiva, was derived from this circumstance. — B. 
Lucan mentions the jaculus, B. ix. 1. 720, and 1. 822. In the last 
passage he says : " Behold ! afar, around the trunk of a barren tree, a fierce 
serpent — Africa calls it the jaculus — wreathes itself, and then darts forth, 
and through the head and pierced temples of Paulus it takes its flight: 
nothing does venom there affect, death seizes him through the wound. It 
was then understood how slowly fly the stones which the sling hurls, how 
sluggishly whizzes the flight of the Scythian arrow." 
There is an account of the jaculus, or, as it is called in Greek, 
'A/corrtccf, in ^lian, Anim. Nat. B. vi. c. 18 ; it is mentioned by Galen, 
Theriaca, c. 8. — B. 
S2 In B. ix. 1. 701, Lucan says : Here the gore (of the Gorgon Me- 
dusa) which first from the sand lifted a head, raised the drowsy asp with 
its pufi'ed-out neck." The whole of this passage in Lucan is well worth the 
attention of those desirous to know something of the serpent-lore of the 
ancients. 
83 Cuvier says, that Geoffroi St. Hilaire has identified this animal with 
the Coluber haje of Linnseus, which has, from the earliest ages, been known 
as a native of Egypt, and where it still exists. Its two most remarkable 
characteristics are those here referred to ; the puffing out of the neck when 
