112 
ON THE PHYSIOONOMY OE SERPENTS. 
serpent which we know under this name ; Cuyier sup-- 
poses, with reason, that the Boa of Pliny"^ is but a great 
Coluber of Italy, probably the Coluber quaterradiatus. 
I have reason for believing that our Vipera Echis, the 
head of which is often ornamented with a white spot, has 
served for the type of the Basilisk of the Cyreniaca de- 
scribed by Pliny ; ] it is supposed that the Hydrus of the 
Homan naturalist J is founded on our Tropidonotus 
Natrix ; but -^lian,§ under the name of sea-snake, has 
incontestably described the Bipsas ; lastly, the Paria^ and 
other serpents, of which classic authors make mention, are 
too vaguely indicated to be referred to their types. 
Those who seek for more detailed information on the 
knowledge which the ancients had of serpents, have only 
to consult the works of the learned Gessner, who has also 
collected in his work all the fables which have been writ- 
ten on these animals in the middle ages. We omit such 
observations, of very little real interest to science, which 
can never acquire solidity through such works as those of 
Aldrovandus and Johnston — complications made with- 
out taste and without genius, and in which one sees repeated 
the innumerable errors of their predecessors, whether it be 
the prejudices which have disfigured the history of Ophi- 
ology, or the description of those chimerical beings named 
Dragons^ which those learned persons have not failed to 
illustrate by figures. 
Ray was the first who essayed to give a sort of classifi- 
cation of serpents ; but his system, founded on an insecure 
basis, has been long abandoned. It was not till the fol- 
lowing century that the Natural History of Serpents, by 
his countryman Owen, appeared — a book written without 
judgment, and abounding in erroneous and fabulous 
stories. 
Several delineators of objects of natural history, about 
the same period, distinguished themselves by the publica- 
tion of collections of figures more accurate than had been 
furnished by their predecessors. We ought to cite, in the 
* Plin. 8, 14. 
t L. c. 29, 22. 
t Plin. 8, 23. 
§ L. c. 16, 8. 
