HISTOKY OF OPHIOLOOY. 
Ill 
proves, by his description of the fangs of the viper, ^ that 
the true seat of the poisonous organ was not unknown to 
the ancients. 
iELiAisr still surpasses his predecessors in the great num- 
ber of errors which he details with regard to the manners 
of serpents ; of which he describes several species, and most 
frequently copies their descriptions. 
Other classic authors, such as Nicander, Virgil, Lu- 
can, &c., speak, in their works, more or less directly, of 
serpents, of their qualities, and of the effects of their 
bite ; but these poetic productions have contributed little 
to advance the knowledge of animals, of the true peculiari- 
ties of which the ancients were ignorant. 
The Greeks indiscriminately comprehended all serpents 
under the general denominations of d^axojv and of op/g, de- 
rivatives from the verbs ds^xstv and o^rsiv, both of which 
signify to see. The first of these appellations has been 
adopted by the Latins ; but that people also employed the 
general names, anguis and serpens^ to denominate Ophidi- 
ans. The German word Schlange, from Schlingen, has an 
etymology analagous to the Latin serpens^ from serpere, 
whence the French have formed their words serpent and 
serpenter. Many other names in use among the ancients 
appear to have been very vaguely applied, although in a 
sense very general. -dSLiAN,! for example, enumerates 16 
species of Aspis^ while it appears from passages in other 
writers, that the Aspis was the ISTaja haje.:i; It is not pos- 
sible to determine positively the species of Ophidians 
known to the ancients, because of the incomplete descrip- 
tions which they have left us ; therefore it is not without 
hesitation that I hazard conjectures on this subject. But 
here they are : The manners which Pliny§ and JElian || 
attribute to the Jaculus coincide perfectly with those of 
the Coluber flavolineatus ; the Ampliisb(Ena^ of these 
authors is probably identical with our Eryx ; the etymo- 
logy of the word Cerastes^ proves that it is still the same 
^ L. cap. xi. 62. t L. c. x. 31. 
X Nicander, in Theriac ; Lucan, 9, 695 ; Plin, 8, 35. 
§L. c. 8, 35. II L. c. 6, 18, 13. 
^ Plin. 8, 35 ; ^lian, 9, 23. Plin. 8, 35, 
