(hese s3 
VY. On the fafeinating Power of the Rattle-Snake, with jome 
Remarks on Dr. Barton’s Memoir on that Subje@*, By 
Profeffor BLUMENBACH. From ProfefJor Voicr’s Ma- 
gazin fiir den neneften guftand der Naturkunde, Part IL. 
1798. 
Ir has been afferted of manyanimals, both warm and cold- 
blooded, and particularly of different fnakes, poifonous as 
well as harmlefs, in the old+ and new world f, that even 
when at fome diftance from other animals, efpecially thofe 
which ferve them as food, they havefuch a fafcinating power 
over them, that they are forced to approach them juit in the 
fame manner as if attracted by them, 
The rattle-fnake has been particularly celebrated on “ac- 
count of this property, which has been denominated its faf- 
cinating power ; and naturalifts have endeavoured to explain 
it on the following principles. Many fuppofe that the fmall 
birds, fquirrels, &c. which have been feen to fall from the 
branches of trees, as it were fpontaneoufly, into the mouth 
of the rattle-fnake, muft have been previoufly bitten by the 
fnake; and that, weakened by the activity of the poifon, they 
swere incapable either of flying away or of remaiiing longer 
on the tree, Some fuppofe that the rattle-{nake, under cer- 
* A Memoir concerning the fafcinating Faculty which has been afcribed 
to the Rattle-Snake and other American Serpents. By Benjamin Smith 
Barton, M.D. and Profeffor of Natural Hiftory and Botany in the 
Univerfity of Penfylvapia. Philadelphia, 1796. 70 pages 8vo. 
+ M. le Vaillant fays, in his New Travels into the interior Parts of 
Africa, that the fafcinating power of many ferpents. is generally believed 
by the Hoitentots, as well as by many of the Negroes and Moors. B. 
t Dr. Barton fays, page 19, that he never found any traces of this af- 
fertion among the Indians of South America. I however remember to 
have read of alike idea in the account of many voyages to that quarter of 
the world. Thus Dobrifhoffer, for infiance, afferts in his Hiftory of the 
Abipons, that allwthe Spaniards and Indians in that part of "Paraguay 
unanimoufly afcribe a like property to the fnake called ampaladas, B. 
tain 
