Fables and Prejudices regarding Serpents. 69 



Who, for instance, will not be struck with the description 

 which Latreille and Lacepede have drawn up of the ha- 

 bits of the boa, and of other serpents of great size ! How 

 many qualities have not these philosophers attributed to those 

 beings, which have never existed, except in their own imagi- 

 nations ! 



Every one has heard of the pretended magic power which 

 serpents are said to exercise over small animals, when they 

 wish to catch them : there are few works on natural history 

 which have not treated of this phenomenon, contradicted by 

 some, and defended by others, without their being able to 

 arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. I shall hot here repeat 

 the absurdities which travellers have written on this head, and 

 which are sometimes extremely curious :* suffice it to say, that 

 these tales, of which the traces may be found in several classic 

 authors,! are particularly in vogue in North America, while 

 they are unknown in the East Indies and in Europe, countries 

 rich in serpents of every species. This observation is too 

 curious not to merit some attention, as it shews how a fact, 

 true or supposed, may be so spread as to become popular. 

 Many causes might have given rise to the origin of the pre- 

 tended power of fascination of serpents. It is true that most 

 animals appear absolutely ignorant of the danger which me- 

 naces them, when they find themselves in the presence of 

 enemies as cruel as serpents ; we often see them walk over 

 the bodies of those reptiles, pick at their head, bite them, or 

 lie down familiarly beside them : but we need not also deny, 

 that an animal, unexpectedly surprised, attacked by so for- 

 midable an adversary, seeing his menacing attitude, his move- 

 ments performed with such celerity, may be so seized with 

 fear, as, at the first moment, to be deprived of its faculties, 

 and rendered incapable of avoiding the fatal blow, which is 

 inflicted at the moment when it perceives itself assailed. Mr 

 Barton Smith, in a memoir expressly written to refute all that 

 has been advanced on the fascination of the rattlesnake, re- 



* See Levaillant 2de Voyage, i. p. 93 ; Barrow, Trav. p. 120. 

 t -SJlian, ii. 21 ; Pomponius Mela, i. 19, 



