SERPENTS. 
413 
are at table, picks up the crumbs from the floor, and retires 
without doing any injury to the company. 
THE ASP. 
THE Asp is well known as having poisoned Cleopatra, 
but naturalists do not appear quite certain what animal 
was meant by the ancients when they spoke of the Asp ; 
some suppose it to have been the Aspic of the Mediterra- 
nean (Vipera aspis,) a kind of viper, but this creature is 
not found in Egypt ; and others refer it to the haje, 
(Coluber fuye,) which is closely allied to the cobra di ca~ 
pello, or hooded snake of India, the most poisonous of all 
the serpent family. 
The Haje, or Egyptian Asp, is from three to six feet in 
length ; it has two teeth longer than the rest, through 
