^ Messrs Herschel and South on the Double Stars 



p&A Tip the fatal boot, and found, firmly fixed in the sub- 

 stiahce of the leather, the fang of the rattlesnake which had 

 thus caused the death of three individuals. Rattlesnakes, Mr 

 Audubon further observed, are often found coiled up and tor- 

 pid when the temperature is low ; and he himself once nar- 

 rowly escaped from perhaps a serious accident, in trusting to 

 their continued torpidity. He had found an excellent specimen 

 coiled "Up and torpid, which he put in his knapsack along with 

 some wild ducks he had been shooting. The motion and heat 

 of his body, together with the additional heat afforded by a 

 sportsman's fire at a meal in the woods, had however revived 

 the animal ; and the motions of his knapsack, observed from 

 the outside, indicated life within. Mr Audubon at first thought 

 that some of his ducks, imperfectly killed, had found their situa- 

 tion irksome, and were testifying their impatience ; but the 

 recollection of the rattlesnake flashing at once on his mind, he 

 threw off his bag, ducks, reptile, and altogether. The remo- 

 val of the animal to a colder temperature brought on again 

 its torpidity. He carried thesnakehome ; and the identical speci- 

 men, if we rightly understood him, is now in the Museum of 

 the Lyceum of Natural History of New York. 



Art. XIX. — On the Systems of Double Stars which have been 

 demonstrated to be Binary ones by the observations of 

 Sib W. Herschel, and Messrs Herschel and South. 



We have already had occasion to direct the attention of our 

 readers to the detailed observations on double stars, which we 

 owe to the diligence and accuracy of Messrs South, Herschel, 

 and Struve. Since that time, Mr South has published, in the 

 Philosophical Transactions for 1826, additional observations 

 on 458 double stars, of which about 160 have been for the 

 first time observed by himself; and in this paper Mr Herschel 

 has, with his usual sagacity, contrasted all the modern ob- 

 servations with those of Sir William Herschel, so as to exhibit 

 the relation which the two stars have to each other in mo- 

 tion, in position, and in distance. 



It is obvious that a great number of double stars are only 



