Excerpt from Contributions to Natural History, and Papers on Other Subjects It is wonderful how much the Serpent is mixed up with the Old and New Testament histories, and how little is known about it; and it would be remarkable if no meaning could be attached to the Scriptural allusions to it, or that no interest should be felt in regard to it. However odious the reptile is held to be, it wonderfully rivets the attention of people meeting it, and it is either timidly avoided or savagely killed. Many of them are not only harmless, but of great use to the farmer in clearing his fields of mice and other vermin; but some of the venomous kinds are so dangerous, that a person bitten by them might as well, in some instances, lay himself down and die, like a poisoned rat in its hole. It is one of the mysteries of nature why some snakes should be poisonous and others harmless, when the for mer could apparently serve the end for which it was created without its venomous peculiarity. The leading traits in the natural history of the Snake are incidentally illustrated in the present. Contributions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.