217. Anguinum.
Thunberg speaks of a mountain, or rather a large single rock in the Cape Colony called Slangenkop, which signifies Serpent's Head. On one side of it is a large and deep crevice, which makes this rock remarkable, for every autumn almost all the serpents of the neighbourhood creep into it and assemble together, in order to remain there secure and unmolested during their torpid state. Towards summer, when the heat begins to set in, serpents of many different kinds, and frequently coiled up together in large knots, are seen coming out from this hole, who spread themselves afterwards over the country, and finding proper food soon recover the flesh which they have lost during their retreat.
This mention of their being coiled together in large knots reminds me of Pliny, and the fable which the Druids grafted upon this as yet unexplained habit of the serpent, for that it is a
