quite exhausted, when it is pierced in the belly, which is its tenderest part; and thus, after numberless wounds, is drawn ashore. In this part of the world, also, as well as at Siam, the crocodile makes an object of savage pomp near the palaces of their monarchs. Philips informs us that at Sabi, on the slave coast, there are two pools of water near the royal palace, where crocodiles are bred as we breed carp in our ponds in Europe.

Hitherto I have been describing the crocodile as it is found in unpeopled countries, and undisturbed by frequent encounters with mankind. In this state it is fierce and cruel, attacking every object that seems endued with motion; but in Egypt and other countries long peopled, where the inhabitants are civilised and the rivers frequented, this animal is solitary and fearful. So far from coming to attack a man, it sinks at his approach with the utmost precipitation; and, as if sensible of superior power, even declines the engagement. We have seen more than one instance in Animated Nature of the contempt which at first the lower orders of the creation have for man till they have experienced his powers of destruction. The lion and tiger among beasts, the whale among fishes, the albatross and the penguin among birds, meet the first encounters of man without dread or apprehension; but they soon learn to acknowledge his superiority, and take refuge from his power in the deepest fastnesses of Nature. This may account for the different characters which have been given us of the crocodile and the alligator by travellers at different times-some describing them as harmless and fearful, as ever avoiding the sight of man, and preying only upon fishes; others ranking them among the destroyers of Nature; describing them as furnished with strength and impelled by maliguity to do mischief-representing them as the greatest enemies of mankind, and particularly desirous of human prey. The truth is, the animal has been justly described by both-being such as it is found in places differently peopled or differently civilised. Wherever the crocodile has reigned long unmolested it is fierce, bold, and dangerous; wherever it has been harassed by mankind, its retreats invaded, and its numbers destroyed, it is there timorous and inoffensive.

In some places, therefore, this animal, instead of being formidable, is not only inoffensive, but is cherished and admired. In the river San Domingo the crocodiles are the most inoffensive animals in Nature; the children play with them, and ride about on their backs; they even beat them sometimes without receiving the smallest injury. It is true the inhabitants are very careful of this gentle breed, and consider them as harmless domestics.

It is probable that the smell of musk, which all these animals exhale, may render them agreeable to the savages of that part of Africa. They are often known to take the part of this animal which contains the musk, and wear it as a perfume about their persons. Travellers are not agreed in what part of the body these muskbags are contained; some say in the ears, some in the parts of generation; but the most probable opinion is that this musky substance is amassed in glands under the legs and arms. From whatsoever part of the body this odour proceeds it is very strong and powerful, tincturing the flesh of the whole body with its taste and smell. The crocodile's flesh is at best very bad, tough eating; and unless the musk-bags be separated it is insupportable. The Negroes themselves cannot well digest the flesh; but then a crocodile's egg is to them the most delicate morsel in the world. Even savages exhibit their epicures as well as we; and one of true taste will spare neither pains nor danger to furnish himself with his favourite repast. For this reason he often watches the places where the female comes to lay her eggs, and upon her retiring seizes the booty.

All crocodiles breed near fresh waters, and though they are sometimes found in the sea, yet they may be

considered rather as a place of excursion than abode. They produce their young by eggs, as was said above; and for this purpose the female, when she comes to lay, chooses a place by the side of a river or some freshwater lake to deposit her brood in. She always pitches upon an extensive sandy shore, where she may dig a hole without danger of detection, from the ground being fresh turned up. The shore must also be gentle and shelving to the water, for the greater convenience of the animal's going and returning; and a convenient place must be found near the edge of the stream, that the young may have a shorter way to go. When all these requisites are adjusted the animal is seen cautiously stealing upon shore to deposit her burthen. The presence of a man, a beast, or even a bird, is sufficient to deter her at that time; and if she perceives any creature looking on she infallibly returns. If, however, nothing appears, she then goos to work, scratching up the sand with her fore-paws, and making a hole pretty deep in the shore. There she deposits from eighty to a hundred eggs, of the size of a tennis-ball, and of the same figure, covered with a tough, white, skin-like parchment. She takes above an hour to perform this task; and then covering up the place so artfully that it can scarcely be perceived, she goes back to return again the next day. Upon her return, with the same precaution as before, she lays about the same number of eggs; and the day following, also, a like number. Thus having deposited her whole quantity, and having covered them close up in the sand, they are soon vivified by the heat of the sun; and at the end of thirty days the young ones break open the shell. At this time the female is instinctively taught that her young ones want relief; and she goes upon land to scratch away the sand and set them free. Her brood quickly avail themselves of their liberty; a part run unguided to the water; another part ascend the back of the female, and are carried thither in greater safety. But the moment they arrive at the water all natural connexion is at an end: when the female has introduced her young to their natural element, not only she, but the male, become among the number of their most formidable enemies, and devour as many of them as they can. The whole brood scatters into different parts at the bottom; by far the greatest number are destroyed, and the rest find safety in their agility or minuteness.

But it is not the crocodile alone that is thus found to thin their numbers; the eggs of this animal are not only a delicious feast to the savage, but are eagerly sought after by every beast and bird of prey. The ichneumon was erected into a deity among the ancients for its success in destroying the eggs of these monsters: at present that species of the vulture called the allinazo is their most prevailing enemy. All along the banks of great rivers, for thousands of miles, the crocodile is seen to propagate in numbers that would soon overrun the earth, but for the vulture, that seems appointed by Providence to abridge its fecundity. These birds are ever found in greatest numbers where the crocodile is most numerous; and, hiding themselves within the thick branches of the trees that shade the banks of the river, they watch the female in silence, and permit her to lay all her eggs without interruption. Then, when she has retired, they encourage each other with cries to the spoil; and, flocking all together upon the hidden treasure, tear up the eggs, and devour them in a much quicker time thau they were deposited. Nor are they less diligent in attending the female while she is carrying her young to the water; for if any one of them happens to drop by the way it is sure to receive no mercy.

Such is the extraordinary account given us by late travellers of the propagation of this animal-an account adopted by Linnæus and the most learned naturalists of the age. Yet, if one might argue from the general analogy of Nature, the crocodile's devouring her own

young when she gets to the water seems doubtful. This may be a story raised from the general idea of this animal's rapacious cruelty; when, in fact, the crocodile only seems more cruel than other animals because it has more power to do mischief. It is probable that it is not more divested of parental tenderness than other creatures; and I am the more led to think so from the peculiar formation of one of the crocodile kind. This is called the open-bellied crocodile, and is furnished with a false belly like the opossum, where the young creep out and in as their dangers or necessities require. The crocodile thus furnished at least cannot be said to be an enemy to her own young, since she thus gives them more than parental protection. It is probable, also, that this open-bellied crocodile is viviparous, and fosters her young that are prematurely excluded in this second womb until they come to proper maturity.

How long the crocodile lives we are not certainly in formed; if we may believe Aristotle, it lives to the age of a man; but the ancients so much amused themselves in inventing fables concerning this animal, that even truth from them is suspicious. What we know for certain from the ancients is, that among the various animals that were produced to fight in the Amphitheatre at Rome the combat of the crocodile was not wanting. Marcus Scaurus produced them living in his unrivalled exhibitions; and the Romans considered him as the best citizen, because he furnished them with the most expensive entertainments. But entertainment at that corrupt time was their only occupation.

CHAP. III.

OF THE SALAMANDER.

The ancients have described a lizard that is bred from heat, that lives in the flames, and feeds upon fire as its proper nourishment. As they saw every other element the air, the earth, and water-inhabited, Fancy was set to work to find or make an inhabitant in fire, and thus to people every part of Nature. It will be needless to say that there is no such animal existing, and that of all others the modern salamander has the smallest affinity to such an abode.

Whether the animal that now goes by the name of the salamander be the same with that described by Pliny is a doubt with me; but this is not a place for the discussion. It is sufficient to observe that the modern salamander is an animal of the lizard kind, and under this name is comprehended a large tribe that all go by the same name. There have been not less than seven sorts of this animal described by Seba; and to have some idea of the peculiarity of their figure, if we suppose the tail of a lizard applied to the body of a frog we shall not be far from precision. The common lizard is long, small, and taper; the salamander, like the frog, has its eyes towards the back of the head; like the frog, its snout is round and not pointed, and its belly thick and swoln. The claws of its toes are short and feeble, its skin rough, and the tongue, unlike that of the smallest of the lizard kind, in which it is long and forked, is short, and adhering to the under-jaw.

But it is not in figure that this animal chiefly differs from the rest of the lizard tribe; for it seems to differ in nature and conformation In nature it is unlike, being a heavy, torpid animal; whereas the lizard tribe are active, restless, and ever in motion in conformation it is unlike, as the salamander is produced alive from the body of its parent, and is completely formed the moment of its exclusion. It differs from them also in its general reputation of being venomous: however, no trials that have been hitherto made seem to confirm the truth of the report.

Not only this, but many others of the lizard tribe are said to have venom; but it were to be wished that mankind for their happiness would examine into the foundation of this reproach. By that means many of them that are now shunned and detested might be found inoffensive; their figure, instead of exciting either horror or disgust, would then only tend to animate the general scene of Nature; and speculation might examine their manners in confidence and security. Certain it is, that all of the lizard kind with which we are acquainted in this country are perfectly harmless; and it is equally true that, for a long time, till our prejudices were removed, we considered not only the newt, but the snake and the blind-worm, as fraught with the most destructive poison. At present we have got over these prejudices; and it is probable that if other nations made the same efforts for information, it would be found that the malignity of most, if not all, of the lizard tribe was only in the imagination.

With respect to the salamander, the whole tribe, from the moron to the gekko, are said to be venomous to the last degree; yet, when experiments have been tried, no arts, no provocations could excite these animals to the rage of biting. They seem timid and inoffensive, only living upon worms and insects; quite destitute of fangs, like the viper; their teeth are very small, and they are hardly able to inflict a wound. But as the teeth are thus incapable of offending, the people of the countries where they are found have recourse to a venomous slaver, which they suppose issues from the animal's mouth; they also tell us of a venom issuing from the claws: even Linnæus seems to acknowledge the fact; but thinks it a probable supposition that this venom may proceed from their urine.

Of all animals the gekko is the most notorious for its powers of mischief; yet we are told by those who load it with that calumny that it is very friendly to man, and though supplied with the most deadly virulence is yet never known to bite It would be absurd in us, without experience, to pronounce upon the noxious or inoffensive qualities of animals; yet it is most probable, from an inspection of the teeth of lizards and from their inoffensive qualities in Europe, that the gekko has been unjustly accused; and that its serpent-like figure has involved it in one common reproach with serpents.

The salamander best known in Europe is from eight to eleven inches long, usually black, spotted with yellow, and when taken in the hand feeling cold to a great degree. There are several kinds. Our black water-newt is reckoned among the number. The idle report of its being inconsumable in fire has caused many of these poor animals to be burnt-but we cannot say as philosophical martyrs; since scearce any philosopher could think it necessary to make the experiment. When thrown into the fire the animal is seen to burst with the heat of its situation, and eject its fluids. We are gravely told, in the Philosophical Transactions, that this is a method the animal takes to extinguish the flames.

When examined internally, the salamander exhibits little difference from other animals of the lizard kind. It is furnished with lungs that sometimes serve for the offices of breathing; with a heart that has its communications open, so that the animal cannot easily be drowned. The ovary in the female is double the size of what it is in others of this tribe; and the male is furnished with four testiculi instead of two. But what deserves particular notice is the manner of this animal's bringing forth its young alive. "The salamander," says my author, "begins to show itself in spring, and chiefly during heavy rains. When the warm weather returus it disappears, and never leaves its hole during either great heats or severe colds, both which it equally fears. When taken in the hand it appears like a lump of ice; it consequently loves the shade, and is found at the feet of old trees surrounded with brushwood at the bottom.

It is fond of running along new-ploughed groundsprobably to seek for worms, which are its ordinary food. One of these," continues my author, "I took alive some years ago in a ditch that had been lately made. I laid it at the foot of the stairs upon coming home, and there it disgorged from the throat a worm three inches long, that lived for an hour after, though wounded as I suppose by the teeth of the animal. I afterwards cut up another of these lizards, and saw not less than fifty young ones, resembling the parent, come from its womb, all alive, and actively running about the room." It were to be wished the author had used another word beside that of worm;" as we now are in doubt whether he means a real worm or a young animal of the lizard species: had he been more explicit, and had it appeared that it was a real young lizard, which I take to be his meaning, we might here see a wonder of Nature brought to the proof which many have asserted and many have thought proper to deny-I mean the refuge which the young of the shark, the lizard, and the viper kinds are said to take by running down the throat of the parent, and there finding a temporary security. The fact, indeed, seems a little extraordinary; and yet it is so frequently attested by some, and even believed by others whose authority is respectable, among the number of whom we find Mr. Pennant, that the argument of strangeness must give way to the weight of authority. However this be, there is no doubt of the animal's being viviparous, and producing above fifty at a time. They come from the parent in full perfection, and quickly leave her to shift for themselves. These animals, in the lower ranks of Nature, want scarce any help when excluded; they soon complete the little circle of their education, and in a day or two are capable of practising all the arts of subsistence and evasion practised by their kind.

They are all amphibious, or at least are found capable of subsisting in either element when placed there; if those taken from land are put into water they continue there in seeming health; and, on the contrary, those taken from the water will live upon land. In water, however, they exhibit a greater variety in their appearance; and what is equally wonderful with the rest of their history, during the whole spring and summer this water-lizard changes its skin every fourth or fifth day, and during the winter every fifteen days. This operation they perform by means of the mouth and the claws; and it seems a work of no small difficulty and pain. The cast skins are frequently seen floating on the surface of the water; they are sometimes seen also with a part of their old skin still sticking to one of their limbs which they have not been able to get rid of; and thus, like a man with a boot half drawn, are in some measure crippled in their own spoils. This also often corrupts, and the leg drops off; but the animal does not seem to feel the want of it, for the loss of a limb to all the lizard kind is but a trifling calamity. They can live several hours even after the loss of their head; and for some time under dissection, all the parts of this animal seem to retain life: but the tail is the part that longest retains its motion. Salt seems to be much more efficacious in destroying these animals than the knife; for upon being sprinkled with it the whole body emits a viscous liquor, and the lizard dies in three minutes in great agonies.

The whole of the lizard kind are also tenacious of life in another respect, and the salamander among the number. They sustain the want of food in a surprising manner. One of them, brought from the Indies, lived nine months without any other food than what it received from licking a piece of earth on which it was brought over; another was kept by Seba in an empty vial for six months without any nourishment; and Redi talks of a large one, brought from Africa, that lived for eight months without taking any nourishment what

ever. Indeed, as many of this kind, both salamanders and lizards, are torpid or nearly so during the winter, the loss of their appetite for so long a time is the less surprising.

CHAP. IV.

OF THE CAMELEON, THE IGUANA, AND LIZARDS OF DIFFERENT KINDS.

It were to be wished that animals could be so classed, that by the very mentioning their rank we should receive some insight into their history. This I have endeavoured to do in most instances; but in the present chapter all method is totally unserviceable. Here distribution gives no general ideas; for some of the animals to be here mentioned produce by eggs, some by spawn, and some are viviparous. The peculiar manner in propagating in each is very indistinctly known. The iguana and the cameleon we know bring forth eggs; some others also produce in the same manner; but of the rest, which naturalists make amount to above fifty, we have but very indistinct information.

In the former divisions of this tribe we had to observe upon animals formidable from their size, or disgusting from their frog-like head and appearance: in the present division all the animals are either beautiful to the eye or grateful to the appetite. The lizards, properly so called, are beautifully painted and mottled; their frolicsome agility is amusing to those who are familiar with their appearance; and the great affection which some of them show to man should in some measure be repaid with kindness. Others, such as the iguana, though not possessed of beauty, are very serviceable, furnishing one of the most luxurious feasts the tropical climates can boast of. Those treated of before were objects of curiosity, because they were apparently objects of danger; most of these here mentioned have either use or beauty to engage us.

Directly descending from the crocodile, we find the cordyle, the tockay, and the tejuguacu, all growing less in order as I have named them. These fill up the chasm to be found between the crocodile and the African iguana.

The iguana which deserves our notice is about five feet long, and the body about as thick as one's thigh: the skin is covered with small scales, like those of a serpent; and the back is furnished with a row of prickles, that stand up like the teeth of a saw; the eyes seem to be but half opened, except when the animal is angry, and then they appear large and sparkling; both the jaws are full of very sharp teeth, and the bite is dangereus though not venomous, for it never lets loose till it is killed. The male has a skin hanging under his throat, which reaches down to his breast; and, when displeased, he puffs it up like a bladder; he is one-third larger and stronger than the female; though the strength of either avails them little towards their defence. The males are ash-coloured, and the females are green.

The flesh of these may be considered as the greatest delicacy of Africa and America; and the sportsmen of those climates go out to hunt the iguana as we do in pursuit of the pheasant or the hare. In the beginning of the season, when the great floods of the tropical climates are past away, and vegetation starts into universal verdure, the sportsmen are seen, with a noose and a stick, wandering along the sides of the rivers to take the iguana. This animal, though apparently formed for combat, is the most harmless creature of all the forest; it lives among the trees or sports in the water without ever offering to offend: there, having fed upon the flowers of the mahot and the leaves of the mapou, that grow along the banks of the stream, it goes

to repose upon the branches of the trees that hang over the water. Upon land the animal is swift of foot; but when once in possession of a tree it seems conscious of the security of its situation, and never offers to stir. There the sportsman easily finds it, and as easily fastens his noose round his neck; if the head be placed in such a manner that the noose cannot readily be fastened, by hitting the animal a blow on the nose with the stick it lifts the head, and offers it in some manner to the noose. In this manner, and also by the tail, the iguana is dragged from the trees, and killed by repeated blows on

the head.

The cameleon is a very different animal; and as the iguana satisfies the appetite of the epicure, this is rather the feast of the philosopher. Like the crocodile, this little animal proceeds from an egg; and it also nearly resembles that formidable creature in form; but it diffors widely in its size and its appetites-being not more than eleven inches long, and delighting to sit upon trees. It is afraid of serpents, from which it is unable to escape on the ground.

The head of a large cameleon is nearly two inches long, and from thence to the beginning of the tail four and a half; the tail is five inches long, and the feet two and a half; the thickness of the body is different at different times; for sometimes from the back to the belly it is two inches and sometimes but one, as it can blow itself up and contract itself at pleasure. This swelling and contraction is not only of the back and belly, but also of the legs and tail.

These different tumours do not proceed from a dilation of the breast in breathing, which rises and falls by turns, but are very irregular, and seem adopted merely from caprice. The cameleon is often seen as it were blown up for two hours together, and then it continues growing less and less insensibly; for the dilation is always more quick and visible than the contraction. In this last state the animal appears extremely lean; the spine of the back seems sharp, and all the ribs may be counted; the tendons of the legs and arms may also be seen very distinctly.

This method of puffing itself up is similar to that in pigeons, whose crops are sometimes greatly distended with air. The cameleon has a power of driving the air it breathes over every part of the body; however, it only gets between the skin and the muscles; for the muscles themselves are never swoln. The skin is very cold to the touch; and though the animal seems so lean, there is no feeling the beating of the heart. The surface of the skin is unequal, and has a grain not unlike shagreen, but very soft, each eminence being as smooth as though it were polished. Some of these little protuberances are as large as a pin's head on the arms, legs, belly, and tail; but on the shoulders and head they are of an oval figure, and a little larger. Those under the throat are ranged in the form of a chaplet, from the lower lip to the breast. The colour of all these eminences, when the cameleon is at rest in a shady place, is of a blueish grey, and the space between is of a pale red and yellow.

But when the animal is removed into the sun then comes the wonderful part of its history. At first it appears to suffer no change of colour, its greyish spots still continuing the same; but the whole surface soon seems to imbibe the rays of light, and the simple colouring of the body changes into a variety of beautiful hues. Wherever the light comes upon the body it is a tawny brown; but that part of the skin on which the sun does not shine changes into several brighter colours-pale yellow or vivid crimson-which form spots of the size of half one's finger: some of these descend from the spine half way down the back; and others appear on the sides, arms, and tail. When the sun has done shining the original grey colour returns by degrees and covers all the body. Sometimes the animal becomes all over

spotted with brown spots of a greenish cast. When it is wrapped up in a white linen cloth for two or three minutes the natural colour becomes much lighter, but not quite white, as some authors have pretended; however, from hence it must not be concluded that the cameleon assumes the colour of the objects which it approaches; this is entirely an error, and probably has taken its rise from the continual changes it appears to undergo.

Le Bruyn, in his voyage to the Levant, has given us a very ample description of the cameleon. During his stay at Smyrna he bought several of this kind, and, to try how long they could live, kept four of them in a cage, permitting them at times to run about the house. The fresh sea-breeze seemed to give them most spirits and vivacity; they opened their mouths to take it in: he never perceived that they eat anything, except now and then a fly, which they took half an hour to swallow; he observed their colour often to change, three or four times successively, without being able to find out any cause for such alterations: their common colour he found to be grey, or rather a pale mouse-colour; but its most frequent changes were into a beautiful green spotted with yel low sometimes the animal was marked all over with dark-brown; and this often changed into a lighter brown: some colours, however, it never assumed, and, contrary to what was said above, he found red to be among the number.

Though our traveller took the utmost care, he was unable to preserve any of them alive above five months; aud many of them died in four. When the cameleon changes place and attempts to descend from an eminence it moves with the utmost precaution, advancing one leg very deliberately before the other, still securing itself by holding whatever it can grasp by the tail. It seldom opens its mouth, except for fresh air; and, when that is supplied, discovers its satisfaction by its motions and the frequent changes of its colour. The tongue is sometimes darted out ofter its prey, which is flies. The tongue is as long as the whole body. The eyes are remarkably little, though they stand out of the head; they have a single eye-lid, like a cap with a hole in the middle, through which the sight of the eye appears, which is of a shining brown and round it there is a little circle of gold-colour: but the most extraordinary part of their conformation is, that the animal often moves one eye when the other is entirely at rest; nay, sometimes one eye will seem to look directly forward while the other looks backward, and one will look upwards while the other regards the earth.

To this class of lizards we may refer the dragon, a most terrible animal, but most probably not of Nuture's formation, Of this death-dealing creature all people have read; and the most barbarous countries to this day paint it to the imagination in all its terrors, and fear to meet it in every forest. It is not enough that Nature has furnished those countries with poison of various malignity-with serpents forty feet long-with elephants, lions, and tigers, to make their situation really dangerous; the capricious imagination is set to work to call up new terrors; and scarce a savage is found that does not talk of winged serpents of immoderate length flying away with the camel or the rhinoceros, or destroying mankind by a single glare. Happily, however, such ravagers are no where found to exist at present; and the whole race of dragons is dwindled down to the flying lizard, a little harmless creature that only preys upon insects, and even seems to embellish the forest with its beauty. The fly. ing lizard of Java perches upon fruit-trees, and feeds upon flies, ants, butterflies, and other small insects. It is a very harmless creature, and does no mischief in any respect. Gentil, in his Voyage round the World, affirms that he has seen these lizards at the island of Java in the East Indies. He observed they flew very swiftly from tree to tree; and having killed one he could not but admire the skin, which was painted with several beautiful

colours: it was a foot in length, and had four paws, like the common lizards; but its head was flat, and had a small hole in the middle; the wings were very thin, and resembled those of a flying fish. About the neck were a sort of wattles, not unlike those of cocks, which gave it no disagreeable appearance. He intended to have preserved it in order to bring it into Europe; but it was corrupted by the heat before the close of the day; however, they have since been brought into England, and are now common enough in the cabinets of the

curious.

The last animal of the lizard kind that I shall mention is the Chalcidian lizard of Aldrovandus, very improperly called the seps by modern historians. This animal seems to make the shade that separates the lizard from the serpent race. It has four legs, like the lizard, but so short as to be utterly unserviceable in walking: it has a long slender body, like the serpent; and it is said to have the serpent's malignity also. The fore legs are very near the head; the hind legs are placed far backward; but before and behind they seem rather useless incumbrances than instruments serving to assist the animal in its motions, or in providing for its subsistance. These animals are found above three feet long, and thick in proportion, with a large head and pointed snout. The whole body is covered with scales; and the belly is white mixed with blue. It has four crooked teeth, as also a pointed tail, which, however, can inflict no wound. Whether the teeth be similar to the viper's fangs we are not told; though Volateranus says they are covered with a membrane; by which I am apt to think he means a venom-bag, which is found at the root of the teeth of all serpents that are poisonous. It is viviparous; fifteen young ones having been taken alive out of its belly. Upon the whole, it appears to bear a strong affinity to the viper; and, like that animal, its bite may be dan gerous.

BOOK III-CHAP. I.

OF SERPENTS IN GENERAL.

We now come to a tribe that not only their deformity, their venom, their ready malignity, but also our prejudices and our very religion has taught us to detest. The serpent has from the beginning been the enemy of man; and it has hitherto continued to terrify and annoy him, notwithstanding all the arts that have been practised to destroy it. Formidable in itself, it deters the invader from the pursuit; and from its figure capable of finding shelter in a little space, it is not easily discovered by those who would venture to try the encounter. Thus possessed at once of potent arms and inaccessible or secure retreats, it baffles all the arts of man, though never so earnestly bent upon its destruction.

Their numbers, however, are thinned by human assiduity; and it is possible some of the kinds are wholly destroyed. In none of the countries of Europe are they sufficiently numerous to be truly terrible; the philosopher can meditate in the fields without danger, and the lover seek the grove without fearing any wounds but those of metaphor. The various malignity that has been ascribed to European serpents of old is now utterly unknown; there are not above three or four kinds that are dangerous, and their poison operates in all in the same manner. A burning pain in the part, easily removable by timely applications, is the worst effect that we experience from the bite of the most venomous serpents of Europe. The drowsy death, the starting of the blood from every pore, the insatiable and burning thirst, the melting down the solid mass of the whole form into one heap of putrefaction-these are horrors with which we are entirely unacquainted.

But though we have thus reduced these dangers, having been incapable of wholly removing them, in other parts of the world they still rage with all their ancient malignity. Nature seems to have placed them as centinels to deter mankind from spreading too widely, and from seeking new abodes till they have thoroughly cultivated those at home. In the warm countries that lie within the tropic as well as in the cold regions of the north, where the inhabitants are few, the serpents propagate in equal proportion. But of all countries those regions have them in the greatest abundance where the fields are unpeopled and fertile, and where the climate supplies warmth and humidity. All along the swampy banks of the river Niger or the Oronoco, where the sun is hot, the forests thick, and the men but few, the ser pents cling upon the branches of the trees in infinite numbers, and carry on an unceasing war against all other animals in their vicinity. Travellers have assured us that they have often seen large snakes twining round the trunk of a tall tree, encompassing it like a wreath, and thus rising and descending at pleasure. In these countries, therefore, the serpent is too formidable to become an object of curiosity, for it excites more violent sensations.

That

We are not, therefore, to reject as wholly fabulous the accounts left us by the ancients of the terrible devastations committed by a single serpent. It is probable in early times, when the arts were little known and mankind were but thinly scattered over the earth, that ser pents, continuing undisturbed possessors of the forest, grew to an amazing magnitude, and every other tribe of animals fell before them. It then might have happened that serpents reigned the tyrants of a dis trict for centuries together. To animals of this kind, grown by time and rapacity to a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet in length, the lion, the tiger, and even the elephant itself, were but feeble opponents. The dreadful monster spread desolation round him; every creature that had life was devoured, or fled to a distance. horrible "fætor," which even the commonest and the most harmless snakes are still found to diffuse, might in these larger ones become too powerful for any living being to withstand; and while they preyed without distinction, they might thus also have poisoned the atmos phere around them. In this manner, having for ages lived in the hidden and unpeopled forest, and finding as their appetites were more powerful the quantity of their prey decreasing, it is possible they might venture boldly from their retreats into the more cultivated parts of the country, and carry consternation among mankind, as they before had carried desolation among the lower ranks of Nature. We have many histories of antiquity presenting us such a picture, and exhibiting a whole nation sinking under the ravages of a single serpent. At that time man had not learned the art of uniting the efforts of many to effect one great purpose. Opposing multitudes only added new victims to the general calamity, and increased mutual embarrassment and terror. animal was therefore to be singly opposed by him who had the greatest strength, the best armour, and the most undaunted courage. In such an encounter hundreds must have fallen; till one, more lucky than the rest, by a fortunate blow, or by taking the monster in its torpid interval and surcharged with spoil, might kill, and thus rid his country of the destroyer. Such was the original occupation of heroes; and those who first obtained that name, from their destroying the ravagers of the earth, gained it much more deservedly than their successors, who acquired their reputation only for their skill in destroying each other. But as we descend into more enlightened antiquity we find these animals less formidable, as being attacked in a more successful manner. We are told that while Regulus led his army along the banks of the river Bagrada, in Africa, an enormous ser pent disputed his passage over. We are assured by

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