313 
The Blind-worm's Sting. 
by the name of slow-worms, and they are known "by their more or 
Jesse varietie of striped colours, drawen long waies from their heads, 
rtheir whole bodies little exceeding a foot in length, and yet is their 
venem deadlie.” 
Timon appeals to the earth to yield him out of her 
vast storehouse simple sustenance. He adjures the com¬ 
mon mother— 
“ Whose self-same mettle, 
Engenders the black toad and adder blue, 
The gilded newt and eyeless venom’d worm, 
With all the abhorred births below crisp heaven 
Whereon Hyperion’s quickening fire doth shine ; 
Yield him, who all thy human sons doth hate, 
From thy plenteous bosom, one poor root! ” 
( Timon of Athens, i. 2,179.) 
Among night’s black agents employed by the witches are 
the— 
“ Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting.” 
(Macbeth , iv. 1, 16.) 
Captain Dampier, one of the early travellers, bestows 
the classical name of Amphisbena on what 
was probably the worm-like reptile found in Amphlstoena ' 
South America. He writes of Brazil:— 
“ They have here also the ampliisbama, or two-headed snake, of a grey 
colour, with black streaks, its bite is reckoned incurable: the best is, 
that it seldom wounds. Having two specks in the head, instead of 
■eyes, some say it is altogether blind, and lives underground like a mole. 
Its length is about fourteen inches, with an head at each end; whence 
blie Portuguese call it cobra de dos cabasees, i.e. the snake with two 
heads ; but I never saw one of these.” (Harris's Voyages , p. 116.) 
Lyly mentions “ the serpent amphisbena, which, hav 
ing at each ende a sting, hurteth both ways 55 (. Ewphues 
p. 2S6). Sir Thomas Browne, in his Inquiry into Vulgar 
Errors , doubts the possibility of such a creature. Modern 
science has retained the name amjjhisbsena for a species 
of footless lizard. 
