86 ' 
Olf THE PHYSIOaNOMY OE SEEPEKTS. 
scriptive part of our work detached observations on this 
subject.^ 
OE MOKSTKOUS SEEPEJfTS. 
Monstrous serpents have been, though rarely, observed : 
to this number pertain the Coluber with two heads taken 
on the banks of the Arno, which E-edi kept alive during 
several weeks, and of which he has furnished a description 
in his works. t Lacepede has collected several other facts 
relative to snakes with two heads, and gives a figure of a 
similar individual preserved in the galleries of the Museum 
of Paris. J The figure of a third serpent with two heads is 
given by Edwards. § M. de Froriep possesses also a spe- 
cimen, in which two heads and two tails are perfectly se- 
parated. M. Mitchell|| makes mention of several monsters 
of this sort, observed in North America ; the heads of 
these subjects being, more or less, united together, so that 
some of them had but three eyes, and a single lower jaw. 
In the same country, a serpent was found of probably the 
species called Coluber constrictor, of which all the parts 
were so disfigured by disease that it was imagined they had 
found, in that monster, the famous sea-snake of the north, 
so celebrated for its vast size. See an extract of the dis- 
sertation published at Boston on this subject, in the Journal 
de Physique, volume Ixxxvi. p. 297 * * * § 
[The translator has a drawing of a small specimen of 
Vivera berus with two distinct heads, found in Dumfries- 
shire. The specimen was shewn to him by the young gen- 
tleman who found it about 4 years ago. In Bancroft’s 
Guiana is figured another snake with two heads.] 
* [These, and many similar remarks, chiefly refer to the second part 
of the author’s work on The Physiognomy of Serpents,’Vwhich, I fear 
in the present low state of this branch of natural history in Britain, 
will not readily find a publisher. — Tn] 
t Ohservatio, iii. p. 1. 
J Quadrup. ovipar.^ ii. pi. 20, fig. 2, p. 475. 
§ Birds, pi. 207. 
11 SilUmarh^s Journal, -s., p.48. See Jsw, p. 1046. 
