preserve
its efficacy as a talisman, the finder had to catch it in a linen cloth
before it fell to the ground. Such ' ' serpent's eggs" were in high
favor with the Romans, who believed they procured for the wearers
success in all disputes and the protection of kings. So great was the
faith reposed in their magical virtues that Claudius is said to have
condemned to death a Roman knight, one of the Vecontii, simply because
he had an ovum anguinum concealed in his bosom when he appeared
in court during the trial of a lawsuit in which he was involved. In
order to enhance the value of this amulet, the story was circulated
that great dangers were incurred in securing it ; for the snakes
pursued any owe who seized the egg and he could only escape by fording a river, across which they could not swim.37
In later accounts of this amulet it is described as a ring, sometimes
composed of a blue stone with an undulating streak or stripe of yellow,
thought to represent a snake.
Certain
so-called floating-stones have been found in a branch of Mann Creek, a
tributary of the "Weiser River, which flows into the latter near its
confluence with the Snake River in Idaho.38 These are hollow
quartz globes, with a shell so thin that the air in the cavity more
than makes up for the specific gravity of the quartz. Some formation
similar to this may possibly have been intended by Pliny in his
description of the ovum anguinum or serpent's egg of the
Druids, which floated if thrown into a stream, although it is perhaps
more probable that these "serpent's eggs" were shells of the
sea-urchin, as they are figured by De Boot and other writers.
The
snake-stone, legends regarding which are met with in so many different
parts of the world, is known to the Lapps of northern Europe, and
strange to say, some of the
* Plinii, " Naturalis Historia," lib. xxix, cap. 12. "Kunz, Dept. of Mining Statistics.
