494 Reptiles. 
With burnish'd neck of verdant gold, erect 
Amidst his circling spires that on the grass 
Floated redundant ; pleasing was his shape 
And lovely .... Oft he bow'd 
His turret crest and sleek enamell'd neck, 
Fawning, and lick'd the ground whereon she trod." 
Paradise Lost. 
The ancients paid great honours to Serpents, and some- 
times called them good genii : they frequented sepul- 
chres and burying-places, and were addressed like the 
tutelary divinities of these places. We read, in the fifth 
book of the iEneid, that when the Trojan hero sacrificed 
to his father's ghost, a Serpent of this kind made his 
appearance : 
and from the tomb began to glide 
His hugy bulk on seven high volumes roll'd; 
Blue was his breadth of back, and streak'd with scaly gold. 
Thus riding on his curls he seemed to pass 
A rolling fire along, and singe the grass ; 
More varkms colours through his body run, 
Than Iris when her bow imbibes the sun. 
Between the rising altars and around, 
The sacred monster shot along the ground ; 
With harmless play among the bowls he pass'd, 
And with his lolling tongue assay'd the taste : 
Thus fed with holy food, the wondrous guest 
Within the hollow tomb retired to rest." Dryden. 
This animal was exalted to the honour of being an 
emblem of prudence, and even of eternity ; and is often 
represented as the latter in Egyptian hieroglyphics, 
biting his tail, so as to form a circle. Serpents are very 
numerous in Africa ; and Lucan, in his "Pharsalia," gives 
us a very extraordinary account of the different species, 
which he seems to have drawn partly from ancient 
Greek authors, partly from actual traditions. He says : 
" Why plagues like these infect the Libyan air ; 
Why deaths unknown in various shapes appear ; 
Why, fruitful to destroy, the cursed land 
Is temper'd thus by Nature's secret hand ; ! 
Dark and obscure the hidden cause remains, 
And still deludes the vain inquirer's pains.'* 
Kowe's " Lucan." 
