88 Of the FASCINATING FACULTY 



t'lie birds and mice, vvhich v/ere thrown into the cage, 

 would immediately endeavour to fquat in a corner, and 

 that foon after, as if feized with deadly angulfh, they 

 would run towards their enemy, who continually {hook 

 his rattles : but this effeCx of a mephitick and fetid breath 

 has been fo much exaggerated, and mifreprefented, that 

 it becomes miraculous. 



" It has been faid," continues our author, " that the 

 rattle-fnake had a faculty of enchanting, as it were, the 

 animal he intended to devour ; that by the power of his 

 glance, he could oblige the vitlim to approach by fmall 

 degrees, and finally to fall into his mouth ; that even 

 man could not refift the magick force of his fparkling 

 eyes ; and that under violent agitations he would expofe 

 himfelfto the envenomed tooth of the ferpent, inftead 

 of endeavouring to efcape. If the rattle-fnake had been 

 more generally known, and if his natural hiftory had en- 

 gaged more attention, other circumftances, ftill more ex- 

 traordinary, would have been added to thefe miraculous 

 feats ; and how many fables would not have been fub- 

 mtutedto the fnnple efFeft of a peftilential breath, which, 

 however, has by no means been either fo frequent or fo 

 fatal as fome naturalifts have believed ! 



" We may prefume, with Kalm, that, for the mofi: 

 part, when a bird, a fquirrel, or any other animal, has 

 been fcen precipitating itfelf from the top of a tree into 

 the jaws of a rattle-fnake, it had been already bitten*; 



* I do not find that Kalm has adopted this fyfteni of explanation, in his 

 Travels. On the contrary, in this v.'ork, he gives fome judicious reafons 

 for rcjefting this mode of explanation. Travds, &c. vol. ii. p. 209 & 210. 

 His memoir, in the Sivedijli Tranjadions, I have not feen. Sir Hans 

 Sloane, a long time fince, conje(51ured, that the whole myftery of the faf- 

 cinating faculty of the rattle-fnake is this, viz. " that when fuch animals as 

 are the proper prey of thefe fnakes, as fmall quadrupeds, birds, &c. are 

 furprifed by them, they bite them, and the poifon allows them time to run 

 a fmall way ; or perhaps a bird to fly up into the next tree, where the fnakes 

 watch them, with great earneflnefs, till they fall down, or are perfedlly 

 dead, whenliaving licked them over with their fpuwl or fpittle, they fwal- 



low 



