66o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



powers and qualities of the animal, but the utter impossibility of 

 such feats of expectoration would seem self-evident to the most 

 untrained observer. One not familiar with the unreasonable hor- 

 ror which usually impels people to flee from even the most harm- 

 less snake might infer from the form of this injunction that the 

 much-slandered rej^tiles are frequently kept as pets, and are there- 

 fore on such terms of familiarity with human beings as to make it 

 easily possible for this fabled spitting into the mouth to occur. 

 In Peabody, Mass., I have heard of a notion that I have not met 

 with elsewhere — viz., that a snake will not go near where gerani- 

 ums grow. 



A physician formerly from De Kalb County, 111., reports that 

 illiterate people there believe that a whiff, however slight, of the 

 breath of the "blow-snake" {Heterodon platyrrhiniis) is "sure 

 death." A stalwart young man, while out hunting, has been 

 known to faint simply because he fancied that a " blow-snake," 

 which his companion was teasing, had reached him with its fatal 

 breath. The blow-snake of Illinois is variously known in other 

 localities as hog-nose, flat-head, viper, and puff-adder. This quite 

 harmless snake affords what I think we may unquestionably call 

 a fine example of protective resemblance, for so cunningly does he 

 mimic the appearance and behavior of some really venomous 

 snakes that his threatening aspect in general strikes terror into 

 the beholder. In Maine, if a cow that has been grazing gives less 

 milk than usual, or than is expected, it is often believed that the 

 common garter-snake has sucked the cow. This strange belief, 

 doubtless, is of remote origin, as it is very common among the 

 housewives of the Russian peasantry. 



How great a place not serpents alone, but other reptiles, and 

 batrachians as well, have occupied in the popular imagination as 

 possessors of magical powers, is well shown by the composition of 

 the witches' hell-broth in " Macbeth " : 



" Round about the caldron go, 

 In the poisoned entrails throw. 

 Toad that under cold stone 

 Days and nights hast thirty-one 

 Sweltered venom sleeping; got, 

 Boil thou first i' tlie charmed pot I 

 • • . . • 



Fillet of a fenny snake, 

 In the caldron boil and bake ; 

 Eye of newt and toe of frog. 

 "Wool of bat and tongue of dog. 

 Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, 

 Lizard's leg and owlet's wing, 

 For a charm of powerful trouble 

 Like a hell-broth boil and bubble." 



