370 MEMOIR ON AMPHIBIA. 



Well ! perhaps the partifans of the third opinion will 

 exclaim : this power, thefe arms which are not yet clilco- 

 vei-ed, are neither terror nor enchantment, but a fetid 

 emanation which the reptile cafts around it, and which 

 aiTefts the animals which experience it to that degree that 

 they become incapable of flight. The obfervations of Mr. 

 Peale, already related, contradidt this opinion. I fliall 

 oppofe to it another and more recent facT:. 



Mr. Peale and myielf had eight living rattleiliakes 

 confined in a box of about eighteen inches fquare. We 

 did not open it before the end of three or four weeks, 

 when, after having taken them out in the prefenee of Dr. 

 Deveze, a member of this fociety, one of the fons of Mr. 

 Peale, and of two other perfons, we examined the box 

 with attention and did not perceive the flighteft extraor- 

 dinary fmell. 



I have feen in my excurfions many ferpents irritated, 

 and ready to dart upon me.* I never perceived that they 

 emitted the flighteil; odour. 



It refults from what I have juft faid, that all which has 

 been reported and written refpedting ferpents to the prefent 

 ■time, is at leafl; very dubious ; that the ftudy of thefe ani- 

 mals is, as it were, yet to be commenced : and that it ofl'ers 

 to the naturalifts who undertake it, the moft interefling and 



* Tlie crotalus bolquira, and adamanteus, the mokafcn, which I call 

 agkiihodon mokafen, the coluber conftriflor, getalus, ceftivus, and faurita 

 of Linnseus ; the Coach-whip fnake of Catelby — the corn fnake of the fame 

 kuthor — anodier very long one marked like the boiquira but unfumilhed witli 

 rattles, and climbing trees — the ferpent with a copper-coloured belly of 

 Catefby : and feveral other non-defcripts, to enumerate which would take up 

 too much time. AU thefe reptiles, upon touching them flightlv v;ith a ftick, 

 recoil upon themfelves, raife their heads, and make a hiding while they open 

 dieir wide mouths. One day I took in my hand a black fnake, after having 

 in-itated and made it wild, it bit me on the lower joint of the fore-finger, 

 a.wo or three drops of blood iffiied from the wound, whicli very much 

 alarmed my guide and feveral perfons who were witnefles, in a few fe- 

 conds the wound had dried up, aiid I felt no greater pain than if 1 had been, 

 enly pricked by a pin. 



