2. Sardph (w)"lb, prob. hurnvig [see Seraph] ; Sept, o^iQ or SpaKdJv ; A. V. " fiery") occurs generally in con- nection with the above terra (Numb, xxi, 6 ; Deut. viii.
15), but occasionally alone (Numb, xxi, 8; Isa. xiv, 29; xxx, 6), as some peculiarly venomous species.
Much has been written on the question of the "fiery serpents" (D^S^'^ari Di\ansri) of Numb, xxi, 6, 8, with which it is usual to identifj' the "fiery flying ser- pent" of Isa. xxx, 6 and xiv, 29. In the transaction recorded (Numb. loc. cit. ; Deut. viii, 15) as having oc- curred at the time of the Exodus, when the rebellious Israelites were visited with a plague of serpents, there is not a wohl about their having been "flying" creatures; there is therefore no occasion to refer the venomous snakes in question to the kind of which Niebuhr {l)e- script. de VA tab. p. 156) speaks, and which the Arabs at Basra denominate heie su7-surie, or heie thidre, " flying serpents," which obtained that name from their liabit of "springing" from branch to branch of the date-trees they inhabit. Besides these are tree-serpents {dendro- pkid(e), a harmless family of the colubrine snakes, and therefore quite out of the question. The Heb. term rendered " fiery" bj* the A. V. is by the Alexandrine edition of the Sept. represented by ^avarovvTtc, "dead- ly." Onkelos, the Arabic version of Saadias, and the Vulg. translate the word "burning," in allusion to the sensation produced by the bite; other authorities un- derstand a reference to the bright color of the serpents. It is impossible to point out the species of poisonous snake which destroyed the people in the Arabian des- ert. Niebuhr says that the only truly formidable kind is that called bcetan, a small slender creature spotted black and white, whose bite is instant death, and whose poison causes the dead body to swell in an extraordinary manner (see Forskal, IJesciipf. Animal, p. 15). It is ob- vious that either the cerastes or the naja haje, or any other venomous species frequenting Arabia, may denote the " serpent of the burning bite" which destroyed the children of Israel. See Ziegra, De Serpentihus Ignitis (.Jena, 1732).
The " fiery flying serpent" of Isaiah {he. cit.) can have no existence in nature if taken in strict literal- ness, though it is curious to notice that Herodotus (ii, 75 ; iii, 108) speaks of serpents with wings whose bones he imagined he had himself seen near Buto in Arabia. Monstrous forms of snakes with birds' wings occur on the Egyptian sculptures; it is probable that some kind of flying lizard {Draco, Dracocella, or Dracunadus') may have been the "flying serpent" of which Herodotus speaks; and perhaps, as this animal, though harmless, is yet calculated to inspire horror by its appearance, it may denote the flying serpent of the prophet, and ma)' have been regarded by the ancient Hebrews as an ani- mal as terrible as a venomous snake. Accordingly, Hamilton Smith is disposed to take the sardph, or sup- posed winged serpent, to be a haje, one of the more Eastern species or varieties of the cobra or naja, which have the faculty of actually distending the hood, as if thej' had wings at the side of the head, and are the same as, or nearly allied to, the well-known spectacle- snake of India ; and this interpretation seems to accord with the words of Moses, the serpents, the burning ones (Numb, xxi, 6). The serpent may exhibit this partic- ular state of irritation when it stands half erect with its hood distended, or it may be that variety wliich is pos- sessed of this faculty to the greatest extent. Naja re- fiectrix, the. pqf or spook adder of the Cape colonists, is reported bj' Dr. Smith to be scarcely distinct from the Egyptian naja haje. With regard to the faculty of flying, the lengthened form, the muscular apparatus, the absence of air-cells, and the whole osteological structure are all incompatible with flight or the presence of wings : hence Hero(lotus, in his search for flying serpents at Buto, may have observed heaps of exnvi;B of locusts cast on shore by the sea — a phenomenon not unfrequent on that coast — but most assuredly not heaps of bones and ribs of serpents. As for those of Plutarch, they may have been noxious sand-flies. Flying serpents are only found represented in the symbolical pictures of
SERPENT
576
SERPENT
Saja haje; and the fiirin of Kneph; from the Bgyptiiiu monumeiitf^.
Egypt, where they occur with birds' wings. Those of history, and of barbarous nations excessively habituated to figurative forms of speech, are various; some being so called because of their rapid motion, others on ac- count of a kind of spring they are said to make at their victims, and a third class because they climb trees, and are reported to swing themselves from thence upon their victims, or to other trees. Now, many sjiecies of ser- pents are climbers ; many hang by the tail from slender branches of low trees in highly heated glens, snapping at insects as they wheel around them ; but all are deli- cately jointed, and if any should swing further than merely to change their hokl, and shouUl miss catching a branch, they would most certainly be dislocated, and, if not killed, very seriously injured. From personal ex- periments, we can attest that serpents are heavy in pro- portion to their bulk, and without the means of break- ing their fall ; that few, large or small, could encounter the shock of twelve or fourteen feet elevation without fracturing many spinous processes of their vertebrsK, and avoid being stunned for a length of time, or abso- lutely crushed to death. Being instinctively conscious of the brittleness of their structure, nearly all snakes are timid, and desirous of avoiding a contest unless greatly provoked. This remark applies, we believe, to all in- noxious serpents, the great boas perhaps excepted, and to most of the poisonous, exclusive of several species of viper and cobra-de-capello (comp. Thomson, Lund and Book, ii, 333). Ot the so-called tlying, or rather dart- ing, serpents, Niebuhr found near Basra a venomous spe- cies called line sursurie and heie thiare — that is, " flying serpent" — because it was said to fling itself from one tree to another. Admiral Anson heard, at the island of Qui- bo, of snakes flying without wings: we maj' notice the A contias and Prester, that fell like arrf)vvs from the tops of trees, and the green yEttda of Ceylon, said to spring from trees at the eyes of cattle — an accusation repeated of more than one species in tropical America. Next we liave the ider tampaiif/ hari, seen in a forest near the river Pedang Bessie, somewhere, we believe, in the Australasian islands, under circumstances that most cer- tainly require confirmation; since this fiery serpent, so called from the burning pain and fatal effect of its bite, swung itself from one tree to another, '240 feet distant, with a declination to the hori/.on of only about fifteen degrees ! We maj' thus refer tlie " winged" or " tlying" serpent to the Naja (rifudians, in one of its varieties, because, with its hood dilated into a kind of shining wing on each side of the neck, standing, in undulating motion, one half or more erect, rigid, and fierce in at- tack and deadly poisonous, y(^t still denominated "good spirit," and in Egypt ever figured in eonil)ination with the winged globe, it may well have received the name of sai-dph, and may thus meet all the valid objections and conciliate seemingly opposite comments (see Numb. xxi, G, 8 ; Deut. viii, 1 5 ; Isa. xvi, 29 ; xxx, G ; and Pax-