Cave basilischium! The rex of serpenti, tant pleno of poison that it all shines dehors! Che dicam, il veleno, even the stink comes dehors and kills you! Poisons you...And it has black spots on his back, and a head like a coq, and half goes erect over the terra, and half on the terra like the other serpents. And it kills the bellula...' 'The bellula?' 'Oc! Parvissimum animal, just a bit plus longue than the rat, and also called the musk-rat. And so the serpe and the botta. And when they bite it, the bellula runs to the fenicula or to the cicerbita and chews it, and comes back to the battaglia. And they say it generates through the oculi, but most say they are wrong.' I asked him what he was doing with a basilisk and he said that was his business.