From c.1300 as to go, move, depart; move (someone or something), transport. Sense of to alter, to change appeared mid-13c. (cf. shiftless). Meaning change the gear setting of an engine is from 1910; to shift gears in the figurative sense is from 1961. Related: Shifted; shifting.
The African Egg-Eating Snake. The African egg-eating snake is one of Egyptâs more benevolent species. These tree-dwelling snakes have a wide range throughout Africa and parts of Arabia, but in Egypt they primarily inhabit the southern Nile Valley.f thereâs one snake in all of Egypt most likely to be mistaken for a devil, itâs the horned viper. This highly venomous desert snake has a hornlike scale protruding above each of its eyes, giving it a truly demonic appearance.
European asp, Vipera aspis. Asp is the modern Anglicisation of the word aspis, which in antiquity referred to any one of several venomous snake species found in the Nile region. It is believed that aspis referred in Egyptian mythology to what is now known as the Egyptian cobra.