Ulysses Aldrovandi

Book 9, chapter 10.

...they are said to reach such a size because no one dares to set traps for them; for it is cautioned by royal edict that no one should harm these beasts. Indeed, he who kills a serpent is punished with a death no less bitter than if he had killed a human being. Therefore, no one in the future should mock Aelian Claudius Aelianus, a 3rd-century Roman author of natural history when he writes that in Senegal in the New World, serpents open such vast maws that they can swallow whole goats—indeed, even bulls, as Textor Jean Ravisius Textor, a French humanist has reported. For those who desire to understand more about great serpents, let them seek out Diodorus, Lucan, and Strabo, who report nearly incredible things about them. To this genus belonged those serpents who killed Laocoon along with his sons Antiphantes and Tymbaeus; therefore Virgil The Roman epic poet of the Aeneid not without cause called these snakes "immense coils." In the third part of the history of Portuguese India, one reads that not far from the sea, vast serpents are found, almost always living in rivers, whose magnitude is proven by their food; for they are said to devour whole deer.

Regarding the color that may be observed in the skin of a serpent: first, it must be noted that the hide of snakes is sometimes smooth and sometimes rough. Indeed, near the Cape of St. Augustine Likely referring to the Spanish settlement in Florida, a serpent is observed which the Spanish call a Cascavella original: "Cascauellam," meaning "little bell"; referring to the Rattlesnake from its sound, as if it were a little bell. Cardanus Girolamo Cardano, a Renaissance polymath is of the opinion that this sound arises because the skin is armed with hard and mobile scales; for it is likely that very large serpents, fortified with hard scales like so many shields, give off a significant noise by shaking their skin during movement. Furthermore, they strike great admiration into those who look upon them because of the diversity of their colors, having a skin filled with black, white, ash-grey, red, and spotted colors. In the northern region, some serpents of this kind wander marked with various colors; but a greater abundance of these, according to Aelian, is produced in India. For they are conspicuous with stripes extending from head to tail—some golden, others silver—and they kill very quickly with a pestilential bite. Likewise, André Thevet A French explorer and Franciscan friar records beautifully colored snakes on the "Island of Mice"; he lists some as reddish with multicolored scales, and others as entirely green like laurel leaves. Green serpents are called Sauritae by Hesychius A Greek lexicographer, perhaps because they resemble the green lizard, which is called sauros original: "$σ α \tilde{υ} ρ o \varsigma$" by the Greeks. Snakes of this kind also dwell among the people of Valais A region in Switzerland, whom they name Grünling German for "greenling" from their color, but Gesner Conrad Gessner, the Swiss naturalist understood those to be extremely venomous. Finally, Nicander writes that the colors of serpents vary according to the diversity of locations: therefore, it is widely known from Pliny that most serpents are adorned with the color of that soil under which they hide each year.

Regarding differences sought from location, Aristotle must be consulted, who in his History of Animals, after examining the nature of fish, reduces serpents to blooded animals and distributes them into terrestrial and aquatic types; then he teaches that the greatest part of these are terrestrial, while a small part are aquatic, namely inhabitants of rivers. Likewise, he established that there are even serpents native to the sea, which live not in the deepest abysses, but in shallow places: their nature and species were treated abundantly in the history of fish. Finally, various species of terrestrial ones are assigned: indeed, some delight in flat places, others in mountainous ones; others live willingly in hiding places and near the roots of beech and oak trees, such as the Drynus From the Greek word for oak, "drys". Others love sooty soil, like the Dipsas A legendary snake whose bite was said to cause intense thirst. Others, finally, are of a dual nature, like the Chersydrus An amphibious snake, which inhabits partly watery places and partly dry ones; therefore, serpents of this kind should be called amphibious. On this matter, Belon Pierre Belon, a French naturalist and traveler relates that he observed in the port of Abydos a certain kind of serpent living in the sea by day and coming out to the mainland by night for the sake of rest; its skin had a red color shining through a greyish-white background.

Difference by reason of odor.

Odor is not to be despised among these distinctions of serpents; since there are serpents known as "musky" from their smell, just like the Serpent of Aesculapius The non-venomous Aesculapian snake, associated with healing, which is called bissa angela Bolognese dialect for "angel snake" by the people of Bologna, and it is of two kinds, as will be explained in its proper place. There also lives in Cyprus a serpent which the inhabitants call Cussa in their own language (there are those who call it a "deaf asp" because it is observed to be deaf for one month and blind for the other); this animal is venomous with a large head and a boneless body, and when it has caught a lamb, it devours it whole, then seeks a tree against which it rubs its body until it pushes down the devoured bones. This animal, when it dies, breathes out a pleasant smell of musk.

Book 9, chapter 10.

If we consider the harmlessness that usually proceeds from beasts of this kind, we shall divide serpents into the harmful and the harmless. Of the harmless ones, we read in Aelian that large serpents live on the island of Hispaniola The island comprising modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic, but they are so mild that they bring no harm to humans. Others are produced in India, to whom nature granted no power of biting,