Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/399

Rh The Jaculus is found in Greece, and may in old times have been found in Italy, though there is no record of it; it is an unpleasing little reptile that hurls itself at one from a tree. He is speaking more from observation (Inf. xxv. 53) when he speaks of

a fiery little serpent (fiery in the Biblical sense, that is to say, venomous), partly dark green, partly black. A very good description of the Adder, by one of which I was nearly bitten in the nose one hot day in June when I stooped to bathe my face in a stream near San Gemignano. The little beast was sitting coiled up in the water, with only its head protruding. Both it and the ordinary Grass-Snake very often take to the water, even in England. In White's 'Selborne,' he says they will stay under water in search of food. There is no doubt that both species frequent damp places where Frogs and the like abound, and will swim after them, if their quarry take to the water. This brings us back to the Biscia, which perhaps should have been included in the generic name for snakes, for the word is onomatopœic to represent the hissing animal, an idea which Milton conveys by the frequent repetition of sibilants when describing snakes. Here it is probably the Common Grass-Snake. Dante had seen such chasing Frogs in the swamps around Ravenna, to which the passage above quoted refers; and he says that Cacus had around his chest more snakes than he would have believed could have been found in the Maremma (Inf. xxv. 19), that other marshy district on the west coast of Italy, part of which was drained by Napoleon, part planted more recently with eucalyptus. There are several other references to snakes, but they are not worth anything from the naturalist's point of view, except the one that invaded the happy vale in Purgatory (Purg. viii. 98); for, though he gives a fabulous touch to it by saying, "possibly it was the one that gave the bitter fruit to Eve," yet it is drawn from life; for he says that it pursued its way through the green grass and bright flowers, turning every now and then its head towards its back, and licking like a beast does when it smooths its coat. A description from which Milton has borrowed (Par. Lost, ix. 525).