Abstract
THE interesting fact contained in the following passage appears to me to deserve disinterment from the pages of a very large book, a work too, which, so far as I know, has never been translated. It occurs in the “Erpétologie Générale” (Par Duméril et Bibron, tome vi. p. 467), and I met with it while employed in working out a collection of reptiles, which I was engaged in classifying. The passage is as follows:—“Dans Ies vilies d'Égypte, on rencontre souvent des charlatans exposant à la curiosité publique des Eryx javelots vivants auxquels, afin de les faire passer pour des Cérastes, ils ont en le soin d'implanter, en manière de corne, audessus de chaque æil, un ongle d'oiseau ou de petit mammifère, par le même precédé que celui qu'on emploie dans nos fermes pour fixer deux ergots sur la crête de certains coqs quand on les chaponne.
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MASSY, H. A Fact for Mr. Darwin. Nature 7, 462 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/007462a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/007462a0
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