ASCKIL'Kl) TO SNAKES. 189 



to view him. He lay coiled up, with his tail erect, and making the usu- 

 al singing noise with his rattles; I had viewed him but a short time, 

 when the most vivid and lively colors imagination can paint, and far be- 

 yond the powers of the pencil to imitate, among which yellow was the 

 most predominant, and the whole drawn into a bewitching variety of 

 gay and pleasing forms, were presented to my eyes : at the same time 

 my ears were enchanted with the most rapturous strains of music, wild, 

 lively, complicated and harmonious, in the highest degree melodious, 

 captivating and enchanting, far beyond any thing I ever heard before or 

 since, and indeed far exceeding what my imagination in any other situ- 

 ation could have conceived. I felt myself irresistibly drawn toward 

 the hated reptile ; and as 1 had been often used to seeing and killing 

 rattlesnakes, and my senses were so absorbed by the gay vision and 

 rapturous music, I was not for some time apprehensive of much danger; 

 but suddenly recollecting what I had heard the Indians relate, (but what 

 I never before believed,) of the fascinating power of these serpents, I 

 turned with horror from the dangerous scene ; but I was unable to extri- 

 cate myself. All the exertions I could make with my whole strength 

 were hardly sufficient to carry me from the scene of horrid yet pleasing 

 enchantment; and while I forcibly dragged off my body, my head seemed 

 to be irresistibly drawn to the enchanter by an invisible power. And I 

 fully believe, that in a few moments longer it would have been wholly 

 out of my power to make an exertion sufficient to get away." 



This story is not inconsistent with Cuvier's idea, that terror is the 

 cause of the animal's rushing into the jaws of the serpent, though it is 

 somewhat remarkable that a boy who had been in the habit of killing 

 tiiese reptiles, should be thus overpowered. But as he acknowledges 

 that he was familiar with the Indians' stories of the powers of the Ilat- 

 tlesnake, we can easily conceive that they may have produced such an 

 effect upon his imagination. I have known a youth of 16 or 17 years 

 of age to faint from reading the account of a disease of which he thought 

 he had the symptoms. 



But a fact of this kind fell under my own observation. When I was a 

 boy of about fifteen, 1 went with several young companions to a wood a- 

 bout two miles distant from Hagorstown, Md. for the purpose of gather- 

 ing the wild haw, with which tjie limestone ridges in that region are 

 frequently overgrown. The berries likewise attracted great numbers 

 of birds, and the clefts among the rocks offered a safe retreat to rep- 

 tiles. Coming to an open space in the wood we were surprised to see a 

 quail or partridge, as it is tliere c^dled, moving about in a very singular 

 iiianncr. We at first thought that it was performing that womlcrl'ul 



