lished an elaborate description of its contents. This
great work, "_Locupletissimi Rerum Naturalium Thesauri accurata
Descriptio_,"--in four volumes folio, published from 1734 to 1765,--is
even now remarkable for the accuracy and beauty of its copious
engravings, which still are referred to as authorities, though the
descriptions are devoid of scientific value. Many of these figures and
descriptions, about whose reality no shadow of doubt exists, are those
of creatures which are altogether unknown to modern science, and some of
them are highly curious.

Serpents seem to have been a special hobby of Seba's; and he has
delineated a vast number of species. Among them are two[141] about which
a singular interest hangs. They are of rather small size; the one pale
yellow, marked with oval reddish spots, the other reddish, with five
green transverse bands. The head in each case has a horny-pointed
muzzle, and the cheeks are furnished with depending wattles of a
coral-red hue.

From the expressions of wonder with which Seba introduces his
descriptions of these animals, it is evident that they were no ordinary
forms. He does not know whether to call them Eels or Serpents, the
critical characters, which in our day would instantly determine this
point, being then scarcely heeded. He calls them "marine," but whether
on any other evidence than the pendent processes of the cheeks, which he
calls "fins," does not appear. But no fish known to naturalists will
answer to these representations. The pointed head, indeed, resembles in
some respects that of _Mur{oe}na_, but this genus of fishes is altogether
destitute of pectoral fins, while the vertically-flattened tail, and the
long dorsal and anal fins confluent around the extremity of the body in
_Mur{oe}na_, are totally unlike these figures. These and all similar fishes
are, moreover, destitute of visible scales; but in these the scaling is
decidedly serpentine, and the second, in particular, has large
symmetrical plates across the belly, while the head in both is shielded
with broad plates like a Colubrine Snake. The tail is drawn out to a
long conical point, without the slightest appearance of compression or
of bordering fins. In one figure there is seen a little projecting point
at the edge of the lower belly, which at first sight suggests the idea
of the anal hook of a _Boa_, but which, by comparison with other
figures, we discover to be intended to represent the projection of the