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NATRIX

Volume 12 · 128 words · 1797 Edition

botany, the name given by Rivinius to a genus of plants nearly allied to the anonis, and comprehended with it in one genus by Linnæus, under the name of anonis. See Rest harrow.

zoology, the name of the common or water-snake, called also torquata, from the ring about its neck. It is not a water animal, properly speaking, but a land one, which being able to swim very well, often takes the water to hunt about for frogs, which are its principal food. It grows to be much longer and larger than the viper, and does not bring forth live young ones, but great numbers of eggs, which it lays in dunghills to be hatched by the warmth of the place, or by the heat of the sun.