SERPENT WORSHIP, 'CHARMING; ETC. 521 



geese, striking at the lid and the glass, and doing their best 

 to alarm the manipulator, and also to suspend the breath of 

 my awe-struck self. Calmly and safely, however, Holland 

 concluded his task. 



By pressing down the head with a stick, or seizing it 

 quickly by the tail, American Indians similarly manage 

 the rattlesnakes. Not they alone, however, are skilled in 

 taming these deadly reptiles. Here, at home in England, 

 domesticated Crotali . are not unknown. Dr. Stradling 

 thinks they may be rendered as harmless as non-venomous 

 kinds, by a gradual training ; and has succeeded in so far 

 taming one that he felt safe in offering it as a gift to even an 

 unskilled non-charmer. ' I have a very nice tame rattle- 

 snake between four and five feet long, in good condition and 

 feeding well, which I shall be delighted to send you,' he 

 wrote me, August i88r. 'It has got so tame that you 

 might handle it without fear at any time you wished to 

 investigate any part of it.' It is perhaps superfluous to add 

 that this amiable and exemplary reptile was gratefully 

 declined. 



The readers devoted servant had not undergone a course 

 of prophylactics as the Doctor had. He is both an expert 

 and to a certain extent venom-proof at the same time ; but 

 for all that the snake was, as he affirmed, tame enough to 

 be handled with impunity by those who might have sufficient 

 courage to venture. That interesting and accommodating 

 rattlesnake is no more, but was even more honoured in 

 death than in life. A true martyr to science, it was sacrificed 

 that its friend and teacher might prosecute his experiments, 

 and also swallow some of the contents of its poison gland, in 



