RATTLESNAKE HISTORY. 28 1 



xxxviii., some experiments made by Sir Hans Sloane are 

 recorded. A dog was made to tread on a rattlesnake which 

 bit him. In one minute of time the dog was paralytic in the 

 hinder legs, and was dead in less than three minutes. 



Another subject of subsequent interest and even importance 

 was some observations made by Sir Hans Sloane on the 

 ' Charms, Inchantments, or Fascinations of Snakes,' in reply 

 to communications by Paul Dudley, Esq., F.R.S., and Col. 

 Beverley, both of whom believed that the rattlesnake could 

 bring a bird or a squirrel from a tree into their mouths by 

 the power of their eye. 



A word on fascination will come in its place, but as a part 

 of rattlesnake history Sir Hans Sloane may be quoted here. 

 And yet a reason so long ago suggested by him, who 

 thoiLghtfiUly watched a snake, seems almost entirely to have 

 escaped notice. He thinks ' the whole mystery of charming 

 or enchanting any Creature is simply this. Small Animals 

 or Birds bitten, the poison allows them time to run a little 

 way (as perhaps a bird to fly up into a tree), where the snakes 

 watch them with great earnestness, till they fall down, when 

 the snakes swallow them.' ^ 



Sir Hans Sloane quotes a good deal from the work by 

 Colonel Beverley,2 and the observations made by him ; 

 particularly one which the author remarks is a 'curiosity 

 which he never met with in print,' viz. the instinct which 

 displays itself so strongly after death in the rattlesnake. A 

 man chopped off the head and a few inches of the neck of a 

 rattlesnake, and then on touching the ' springing teeth with 



^ rhilosophical Traiisactions^ vol. xxxviii. p. 321. 1733- 

 2 History of Virginia, 1 722. 



