"Nulla venena nocent; nec Serpens serpit in herbâ; Nec conquesta canit garrula Rana lacu In qua Scotorum gentes habitare merentur; Inclyta gens hominum, milite, pace, fide."
"Rana." A note on this word in Montgomery's _Poetry of Ireland_ declares:
"However fabulous this may appear, it is certain that _Frogs_ were formerly unknown in this country: _they were first propagated here from spawn introduced as an experiment by a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1696_."
Joceline of Furnes, Sir James Ware, Fynes Moryson, and several others, notice the absence of serpents in Ireland.
A Belfast correspondent to the _Dublin Penny Journal_, June, 1834, mentions some cases of _introducing reptiles_ into Ireland:
"About 1797, a gentleman is said to have imported from England into Wexford, a number of vipers:"
they died immediately after. He continues:--
"We are sorry to record that the virtues of the good old times have passed away, _as snakes are at this moment_ (June, 1834) _free denizens of the County of Down, and gambolling in its shrubberies and plantings_."
"In the summer of 1831, a gentleman, by way of experiment to ascertain whether snakes would survive in Ireland, brought from Scotland a few pair of what are usually called the common snake (_Coluber natrix_). These he put into a plantation at Milecross, near Newtownards, where they soon from their number gave evidence of becoming as fruitful as if they had been placed in South Carolina."
I have not heard how long the snakes continued at Milecross, but I believe they are not there now. The Marquis of W----d, I have heard, in a similar freak, endeavoured, but unsuccessfully, to propagate snakes on his property.
The usual Irish word for _serpent_ is _nathair_; Welsh, _gnadr_; German, _natter_; Anglo-Saxon, _nædre_; Latin, _natrix_; English, _adder_. The epithet _nimhe_, poison, is often added, and a compound word made, _nathair-neimhe_.
_Peist_, a word I have before alluded to, is analogous with the Latin _best-ia_, and means a _worm_, a _beast_, as well as a _serpent_.
Yours of the 4th I showed to Mr. Baker, who desires me to tell you, that the Canons of 1571, with the subscriptions, are (as the Articles) in paper bound up in the same volume of the _Synodalia_, and stand there next to the "Articles of 1571" subscribed by the Archbishop and ten Bishops.