Note 153 — BOOK IV.

I at first thought that these serpents could be only the dipsada, or fire-serpent. I communicated this opinion to M. Walckenaer, who with reason had seen nothing in the reptiles of which Albert d’Aix speaks, but the common gecko of Egypt ’Lacerta gecko of Linnæus), which Belon and Hasselquits have found in great numbers in Syria, Judea, and Egypt. This species is very venomous; it resembles other species of the same genus and of the genus stellion, which appear to be harmless, and are found in France, Italy, Sardinia, and on all the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, where it is called tarente, tarenta, tarentola, &c. The opinion of M. Walckenaer appears the more reasonable, from the two species of serpents and vipers to which naturalists have given the name dipsada, the one, the Coluber dipsas of Linnæus, which is the dipsada, properly speaking, being only found in America; the other, the black viper, Coluber præster of Linnæus, appears peculiar to Europe, and is more common in the north than in the south. We may venture to quote the passage of Albert d’Aix in Latin, which speaks of the remedy advised by the inhabitants of the country against the bite of the tarenta:—Similiter et aliam edocti sunt medicinam, ut vir percussus sine morâ coiret cum muliere, cum viro mulier, et sic ab omni tumore veneni liberaretur uterque.—Alb. Aq. lib. iv. cap. 40. The same historian speaks of another remedy, which consisted in pressing strongly the place of the bite, to prevent the communication of the venom with the other parts of the system.