To return to Bruce's statements. After describing the little horned viper of Egypt, the _Cerastes_, and its insidious manner of creeping towards its victim with its head averted, till within reach, when it suddenly springs and strikes, he goes on to say: "I saw one of them at Cairo crawl up the side of a box, in which there were many, and there lie still as if hiding himself, till one of the people who brought them to us came near him, and though in a very disadvantageous posture, sticking, as it were, perpendicularly to the side of the box, he leaped near the distance of three feet, and fastened between the man's forefinger and thumb, so as to bring the blood. The fellow shewed no signs of either pain or fear, and we kept him with us full four hours, without his applying any sort of remedy, or seeming inclined to do so. "To make myself assured" (adds Bruce) "that the animal was in its perfect state, I made the man hold him by the neck, so as to force him to open his mouth and lacerate the thigh of a pelican, a bird I had tamed, as big as a swan. The bird died in about thirteen minutes, though it was apparently affected in fifty seconds; and we cannot think this was a fair trial, because a very few minutes before it had bit the man, and so discharged part of its virus, and it was made to scratch the pelican by force, without any irritation or action of its own. [Illustration: SNAKE-CHARMING.] "I will not hesitate to aver," he adds, "that I have seen at Cairo (and this may be seen daily without trouble or expense) a man, who came from above the catacombs, where the pits of the mummy-birds are kept, who has taken a Cerastes with his naked hand from a number of others lying at the bottom of the tub, has put it upon his bare head, covered it with the common red cap he wears, then taken it out, put it in his breast, and tied it about his neck like a necklace, after which it has been applied to a hen and bit it, which has died in a few minutes;. and, to complete the experiment, the man has taken it by the neck, and beginning at its tail, has ate it, as one would do a carrot or a stock of celery, without any seeming repugnance."[192]