Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/398

370 the fifth Bolgia in the "Inferno," in which the judges who take bribes for giving judgment squirm in a marsh of boiling pitch, over which Graffiacane and other such demons wheel on ponderous wings. The wretched souls would fain get respite by emerging from the pitch, and so (Inf. xxii. 25) —

But not for long. The warder demons, when they see them, swoop down upon them, at whose approach they mostly plunge again into the pitch, though Dante saw one wait, "as one Frog remains, and another dives down." We have, too, the description of the accursed souls that fly before the approach of the celestial messenger, who strides dry-shod across the Styx (Inf. ix. 76), "even as Frogs disappear in all directions across the water before the (biscia) snake, till they are huddled all together on the land."

This brings us to the consideration of snakes, for which he used as generic names "serpe" or "serpenti," crawling animals. Since the thieves in Hell (Inf. xxiv. 82) are punished by snakes, he gives us a grand selection. He says there were more there than could be found in the deserts of Libya or in Ethiopia, or above the Red Sea.

Not unlike Milton's list (Par. Lost, x. 525)—"Asp and amphisbœna dire"—

In other passage, speaking of the Furies (Inf. ix. 41), who

As a whole they are more interesting as mentioning the snakes known to the ancients than for any other reason, for they come from Lucan's 'Pharsalia,' and are to be found in Pliny's Natural History; but some of them are probably Italian, for Virgil speaks (Geo. xi. 214) of "nigris exesa chelydris creta," which may have been Tropodonatus tessellatus and viperinus, both Italian snakes, that live almost exclusively in the water, and feed on fish.