104 
ON THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF SEKPENTS. 
and the succession of the infinity of ages ; the fables, last- 
ly, of Achelous, of Jupiter metamorphosed into a serpent 
to captivate the object of his love, and many others, attest 
that the ancients attributed to the serpent qualities the 
most opposite, and that the same being, according to them, 
united at the same time force with timidity, beauty with a 
shape which inspired horror, mildness with cunning or de- 
ceit. 
We ought to attribute to causes similar to those we have 
mentioned, to that superstition — an inheritance of human 
nature — the innumerable errors which, even to our times, 
have disfigured the history of serpents. A vast number of 
those fables, invented in the infancy of the human race, and 
transmitted to posterity by classic authors, are spread abroad 
so as to acquire popularity from the authority which is ac- 
corded to those writers. To prove this assertion it is suffi- 
cient to recollect what several modern authors have repeated 
in their works, that hogs kill snakes to feed upon them, 
and that serpents find in milk a great dainty ; errors which 
date from the times of Aristotle^ and Pliny,! but pro^ 
pagated in Europe, in America, and other parts of the 
world. We read in the same authors, J that the ichneumon, 
to defend itself against the bites of snakes, bedaubs itself 
with mud, and that it eats a certain herb which those rep- 
tiles hold in aversion. This prejudice, which rests on the 
simple fact that the little mammiferae we speak of, as well 
as many others, are the natural enemies of serpents, is pre- 
served in various parts of the East Indies. The plant 
which possesses the virtue of repelling snakes, according to 
K^mfer,§ is the Ophiorhiza Mungos, according to others, 
the Aristolochia indica, 'which, the jugglers of those countries 
pretend to use with success ; but the experiments of Rus- 
sell || have demonstrated that all these qualities repose 
only on popular prejudices. The same holds good with 
regard to the employment of the Poly gala Senega^% a plant 
* Hist. Anim., ix. 2. f Hist. Nature viii. 14. 
t Aristotlis, ix. 7. Plin., viii. 36. 
§ Amoenitates Exoticce, i. p. 305. 
|j Indian Serpents, i. p. 86. 
t Palisot Bauvais, Ap. Latreille, iii. p. 90. 
