BASILISK, in Latin, Basiliscus, or Regulus, a very dangerous sort of Serpent, which kills, as they say, by its breath or sight only. It was called Regulus, which answers to the name of Basiliscus or little King, because it wears a kind of crown upon its head, and is the most dangerous of all Serpents. Galen1 says, that it is of a colour inclining to yellow; that it has three little eminences upon its head, speckled with whitish spots, which have the appearance of a sort of Crown. Ælian2 says, that its poison is so penetrating as to kill the largest Serpents with its vapour only. If it bites but the end of any man’s stick it kills him. It drives away all other Serpents with the noise of its hissing. Pliny3 says, it kills those who look upon it. In some apothecaries shops there are little dead Serpents shewn, which are said to be Basilisks. It is a kind of small bird almost like a cock, but without feathers, its head is lofty, its wings are almost like a bat’s, its eyes large, and its neck very short.
But the most eminent Physicians and modern Philosophers look upon all that is said of the Basilisk as fabulous and mere invention; they say that no one ever saw any real Basilisks, that those which are shewn and sold at Venice, and in other places, are nothing but little thornbacks artificially put into a form like that of a young cock, by stretching out their fins, and contriving them with a little head and hollow eyes. And this we have in reality observed in a supposed Basilisk, at an apothecary’s shop in Paris, and in another at the Jesuits of Pont-a-Mousson. See our Comment on Psalm xc. 13. The Hebrew term Pethen4, which is translated Basilisk, signifies an Asp, as the best Interpreters agree.
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