"Ophidia" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Snakes, says the Encyclopaedia, are reptiles of the saurian class Ophidia, characterised by an elongated, cylindrical, limbless, scaly form, and distinguished from lizards by the fact that the halves (RAMI) of the lower jaw are not solidly united at the chin, but movably connected by an elastic ligament. ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... and awe which is worship. Their oldest literature shows how large a part the serpent played in the so-called divine age, how it acted as progenitress of the Mikado's ancestry, and how it afforded means of incarnation for the kami or gods. Ten species of ophidia are known in the Japanese islands, but in the larger number of more or less imaginary varieties which figure in the ancient books we shall find plenty of material for fetich-worship. In perusing the "Kojiki" one scarcely knows, when he begins a story, whether the character which to all appearance ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... in the Calc. Edit. The serpent is an exaggeration of the python which grows to an enormous size. Monstrous Ophidia are mentioned in sober history, e.g. that which delayed the army of Regulus. Dr. de Lacerda, a sober and sensible Brazilian traveller, mentions his servants sitting down upon a tree-trunk in the Captaincy of San Paulo ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton |
