General zoology Volume 3, pt. 2 ; or Systematic natural history

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1802 Excerpt: ...the abdomen is also yellow, each scutum being marked on each side by a black speck. This snake is an animal of a perfectly harmless nature, and, like the former, is capable of being tamed to a considerable degree. The Count de Cepede relates, from Mr. Bomare, an anecdote relative to a snake which he supposes to have been of this species, which had been so completely tamed by a lady, as to come to her whenever she called it, follow her in her walks, wreath itself round her arms, and sleep in her bosom. One day, when this lady went in a boat, to some distance up a large river, she threw the snake into the water; imagining that it would readily recover the boat by swimming; but the current proving unusually strong, at that juncture, owing to the advance of the tide, the poor animal, in spite of all its efforts to reach the vessel, was unfortunately drowned. On the approach of winter this species, like the former, retires into subterraneous retreats, and passes that season in a state of torpidity, from which it recovers in the spring, when it casts its skin, and appears in its highest beaut)7. DUN SNAKE. Coluber Elaphis. C. gilvvs, supra lineh quatuor longitudivalibus nigris, abdomine albido. Gilvous Snake, with four longitudinal black lines, and whitish abdomen. Elaphis. Aldrov. Serp.p. 266, 267. Jonst. Rept. t. V. La Quatre-Raies. Cepede Serp. p. 16'3. pi. I.f. 1. Abdominal scuta 218, subcaudal scales 73. Though this species has been pretty well figured in the work of Aldrovandus, and from thence copied into that of Johnston, yet it appears to have been in a great degree unknown to modern naturalists till it was more distinctly described by the Count de Cepede, who informs us that it is found in some parts of France, and measures near four feet in length: its...