FABLES AND PREJUDICES. 107 



pleased to repeat to strangers passing through their coun- 

 try. One is astonished to hear of sea-snakes of monstrous 

 size ;* of boas from forty to fifty feet long that attack men, 

 oxen, tigers, and swallow them whole, after having covered 

 them with a frothy saliva :t absurdities that bring to re- 

 collection those fables of winged monsters or dragons, of 

 which the mythology of the ancient people of Asia has 

 preserved the remembrance, and of which the waj^vard 

 fancy of the Chinese has multiplied the forms. What 

 shall we say on reading in modern works of great re- 

 putation, descriptions of the marvellous effects produced 

 on serpents by music ; when travellers of talent tell us 

 they have seen young snakes retreat into the mouth 

 of their mother, every time that they were menaced with 

 danger ! Unfortunately naturalists, in classing such 

 fables with the number of facts, have often embellished with 

 them their descriptions, and thus have contributed to give 

 them universal acceptation. Who, for instance, will not be 

 struck with the description which Latreille and Lace- 

 PEDE have drawn up of the habits 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 imaginations ! 



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 phenome- 

 non, contradicted by some, and defended by others, with- 

 out their being able to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. 

 I shall not here repeat the absurdities which travellers 

 have TVTitten on this head, and which are sometimes ex- 

 tremely curious :l 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 



* See the article Hijdrophis in the descriptive part of my work, 

 t See the article Boa. 



J See Levaillant, 2de Voyage, i. p. 93 ; Babrow, Trav. p. 120. 

 § iELiAN, ii. 21 ; Pomponius Mela, i. 19. 



