Though snakes have no limbs externally, ‘the work of hands, feet, and fins is performed by a modification of the vertebral column.’[64] ‘Except flying, there is no limit to their locomotion,’ said Professor Huxley in _his_ lecture on ‘Snakes,’ a few weeks previously to that of Ruskin, and under the same roof. To both these lectures we shall again refer, as the reader will feel sure that all coming from such sources must add value to the present writer’s arguments. As ‘flying,’ the swift motions of many snakes have been described by ancient writers, as, for example, the ‘flying serpents’ of Scripture, though these are by many supposed to be the _Dracunculi_, the earliest known of human parasites. The astonishing movements of serpents were, however, in superstitious ages ascribed to supernatural agency. Says Pliny: ‘The Jaculus darts from trees, flies through the air as if it were hurled from an engine.’ The ‘wisest of men’ admitted that the actions of serpents were beyond his comprehension; ‘the way of a serpent on a rock’ was ‘too wonderful’ for him. Even in intermediate ages, when travellers and naturalists began to confront fiction with fact, even in the days of Buffon and Lacepède, a serpent was regarded as a living allegory rather than a zoological reality by many intelligent, albeit unscientific persons. Of such was Chateaubriand, whose contemplation of the serpent partook of religious awe. ‘Everything is mysterious, secret, astonishing in this incomprehensible reptile. His movements differ from those of all other animals. It is impossible to say where his locomotive principle lies, for he has neither fins, nor feet, nor wings; and yet he flits like a shadow, he vanishes as if by magic, he reappears, and is gone again like a light azure vapour on the gleams of a sabre in the dark. Now he curls himself into a circle, and projects a tongue of fire; now standing erect upon the extremity of his tail he moves as if by enchantment. He rolls himself into a ball, rises and falls like a spiral line, gives to his rings the undulations of a wave, twines round the branches of trees, glides under the grass of the meadow, or skims along the surface of the water,’ and so forth.[65] Excepting the ‘tongue of fire,’ the whole of this poetic description is so far true and unexaggerated, that Chateaubriand has not attributed to the reptile one action of which it is not capable, and which, to the untutored mind, might well seem supernatural. Roget, Schlegel, Huxley, and others tell us the same things in the language of science. To quote them all is impossible; the reader will be content with one scientific assurance of ophidian capabilities, not less poetic than Chateaubriand’s.