NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 387 



from spray to spray, hovering and approaching gratlually nearer 

 their enemy, regardless of any other danger ; but with distracted 

 gestures and outcries descend, though from the top of the loftiest 

 trees, to the mouth of the snake, who openeth his jaws, takes them 

 in, and in an instant swallows them. 



Animals of greater size, though they are not fascinated, 

 are affected at the presence of these reptiles by the most 

 violent feelings of abhorrence. 



The largest I ever saw, says Catesby, was one about eight feet 

 in length, weighing between eight and nine pounds. This monster 

 was gliding into the house of Colonel Blake, of Carolina, and had 

 certainly taken his abode there undiscovered, had not the domestic 

 animals alarmed the family with their repeated outcries : the hogs, 

 dogs, and poultry united in their hatred to him, showing the 

 greatest consternation by erecting their bristles and feathers ; and, 

 expressing their wrath and indignation, surrounded him, but care- 

 fully kept their distance ; while he, regardless of their threats, 

 glided slowly along. 



It is not an uncommon thing to have them come into houses ; a 

 very extraordinary instance of which happened to myself, in the 

 same gentleman's house, in the month of February, 1723 : the 

 servant, in making the bed in a ground-room (but a few minutes 

 after I left it), on turning down the clothes, discovered a rattle- 

 snake lying coiled beneath the sheets in the middle of the bed.* 



Catesby's evidence relative to the power of fascination 

 is merely hearsay, it may be said ; we will therefore call 

 Lawson, an eye-witness : 



They (rattlesnakes) have the power, or art (I know not which 

 to call it), to charm squirrels, hares, partridges, or any such thing, 

 in such a manner, that they run directly into their mouths. This 

 I have seen by a squirrel and one of those rattlesnakes j and other 

 snakes have, in some measure, the same power.f 



I remember, many years ago, witnessing the effect 

 produced by the sight of a serpent on the larger animals. 

 I was enjopng my book — it was The Lay of the Last 

 Minstrel — on a delicious warm spring day, under one of 

 the trees in the upper part of our pretty hanging orchard. 



* Carolina. t History of Carolina, 1714. 



s 2 



