absolutely deaf, for he says it can hear well. This epi- thet of deafness attributed to the C. lebetinus Oedman thinks may throw light on the passage in Psa. Iviii, 5, about " the deaf adder." As regards the oyrinion of Rosennililler and otliers who recognise the pethen under the bcetan of Forskal, it may be stated that, even if the identity is allowed, we are as much in the dark as ever on the subject, for the C. bcetan of Forskal has never been determined. If C. bwtan be the same as C. lebetinus, the species denoted may be the Echis arenicola (Toxi- coa) of Egypt {Catalogue of Snakes in Brit. Mus. i, 29). Probably all that naturalists have ever heard of the C. bcBtan is derived from two or three lines of description given by Forskal. "The whole bodj' is spotted with black and white; it is a foot in length, and of the thick- ness of two thumbs; oviparous; its bite kills in an in- stant, and the wounded body swells." The evidence af- forded by the deaf snake of Cyprus, and adduced in sup- port of his argument by Oedman, is of no value what- ever; for it must be remembered that audition in all the Ophidia is very imperfect, as all the members of this order are destitute of a tj'mpanic cavity. The epithet "deaf," therefore, so far as relates to the power all ser- pents possess of hearing ordinary sounds, may reasonably be applied to anj' snake. Vulgar opinion in many coun- tries attributes "deafness" to the adder; but it would be very unreasonable to infer from thence that the common adder {Pelias berus) is identical with the "deaf adder" of the 58th Psalm. Vulgar opinion in Cyprus is of no more value in the matter of identification of species than vulgar opinion elsewhere. A preliminary proof, more- over, is necessary for the argument. The snake of Cyprus must be demonstrated to occur in Egypt or the Holy Land: a fact which has never yet been proved, though, as was stated above, the snake of Cyprus {C. lebetbivs) may be the same as the Echis arenicola of North Africa. Very absurd are some of the explanations which com- mentators have given of the passage concerning the "deaf adder that stoppeth her ears;" the rabbi Solo- mon (according to Bochart, iii, 162) asserts that "this snake becomes deaf when old in one ear; that slie stops the other with dust, lest she should hear the charmer's voice." Others maintain that "she applies one ear to the ground and stops the other with her tail." Tliat such errors should have prevailed in former days, when little else but foolish marvels filled the pages of natural history, is not to be wondered at, and no allusion to them would have been made here if this absurd error of "the adder stopping her ears with her tail" had not been per- petuated in our own day. In Bythner's Lyre of David, p. 165 (Dee's translation, 1847), the following explana- tion of the word 7)«^^CTi, without note or comment, occurs: " A sp, whose deafness marks the venom of his malice, as though impenetrable even to charms; it is deaf of one ear, and stops the other with dust or its tail, that it may not hear incantations." Dr. Thomson also {Land and Book, i, 221) seems to give credence to the fable when he writes: "There is also current an opinion that the adder will actually stop up his ear with his tail to fortify him- self against the influence of music and other charms." It is not then needless to observe, in confutation of the above error, that no serpent possesses external openings to the ear. The true explanation of Psa. Iviii. 5 is sim- ply as follows; There are some serpents, individuals of the same species perhaps, which defy all the attempts of the charmer — in the language of Scripture such in- dividuals may be termed deaf. The point of the rebuke consists in tlie fact that the pethen was capable of hear- ing the charmer's song, but refused to do so. The in- dividual case in question was an exception to the rule. If, as some have supposed, the expression "deaf adder" denoted some species that was incapable of hearing, whence it had its specific name, how could there be any force in the comparison which the psalmist makes with wicked mcnV Ser[)ents, though, comparatively speak- ing, deaf to ordinary sounds, are no doubt capable of hearing the sharp, shrill sounds which the charmer pro-
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duces either by his voice or by an instrument; and this comparative deafness is, it appears to us, the very reason why such sounds as the charmer makes produce the desired effect in the subject under treatment. As the Egyptian cobra is more frequently than any other spe- cies the subject upon which the serpent-charmers of the Bible-lands practice their science, as it is fond of con- cealing itself in walls and in holes (Isa. xi, 8), and as it is not impossible that the derivation of the Hebrew word pethen has reference to the expanding powers of this serpent's neck when irritated, it appears to us to have at least as good a claim to represent the pethen as the ver}' doubtful species of Coluber hatan, which on such slender grounds has been so positively identified with it. See Skkpent-chakming.