Fig. 24 is a facsimile from one of the illustrations in Munster’s “de Africæ regionibus,” and represents the sort of thing that he would have us believe was to be found in his days in Africa, that great home of the weird and mysterious. The perspective effect of the coils of the upper creature, as they recede in the distance towards the horizon, suggests a terrific length, something far exceeding any of the possibilities of the present day, but this may be only a slip of draughtmanship, or a polite desire on the part of the two-headed reptile not to crowd up its three-headed companion. The asp, from being freely found in Egypt and other parts of North Africa, was well known to the naturalists of Greece and Rome, and its deadly nature fully understood, though the facts are perhaps rather against them when they assert that they are such affectionate creatures that they are always found in pairs and cannot live without their mates. We are told that should one of the pair be killed, this sweet connubial bliss is exchanged for deadly ferocity and instant revenge. The unhappy man is closely pursued and relentlessly tracked, and finds no safety amongst his fellows, as the avenger knows him from all others, and will not be turned aside. Distance is no object, and difficulties no hindrance, and all that the luckless individual can do is to take to his heels with all celerity, and at the earliest opportunity embark in a boat or swim a river, and thus shake off his relentless pursuer. Democritus tells us that if we mingle the blood of certain birds together a serpent will be engendered. Whoso eateth of this serpent shall know the language of birds, and be able to join in the conversation of any or all of the great feathered host, singing with the lark, cawing with the rook, hooting with the owl, and being thoroughly conversant with all that passes between them. Maundevile tells us, in his wonderful “Voiage and Travaile,” of an island where one finds “a kynde of Snayles that ben so grete that many persones may loggen hem in hur Schelles, as men woulde done in a litylle Hous”—a sufficiently striking feature in the landscape of that now unknown land. Snails entered largely into the rustic Materia Medica, and not only indeed into rural practice but into the most courtly and exclusive circles, for we find Sir John Floyer, the physician to Charles II., prescribing thus for dulness of hearing: “Take a grey snaile, pricke him, and putt ye water which comes from him into ye eare and stop it with black woole, and it will cure.” He left behind him a folio volume of such-like valuable recipes, and the manuscript may yet be seen in the Cathedral Library at Lichfield. He was a native of that city.