58 FIELD-NOTES FOR THE YEAR. CH. XXIV. 



rats, etc., frogs would increase to such a degree as 

 to become a serious nuisance. The snake is another 

 of the frog's devourers. It is a curious, although I 

 cannot venture to say a pleasant sight, to see one of 

 these reptiles attack and swallow a living frog, of a 

 diameter four times as large as its own. After a 

 frog has been pursued for a short time by a snake 

 it suddenly seems to be fascinated by the bright 

 sparkling eye of its enemy, and gives up all attempt 

 at escape ; then the snake, with a motion so rapid 

 that the eye cannot keep pace with it, darts on its 

 unhappy prey, generally seizing it by the hind-leg. 

 There now commences a struggle for life and death, 

 the frog clinging pertinaciously to any branch or 

 projection which it can reach with its fore-legs ; but 

 all in vain ; for the snake quietly but surely, by a 

 kind of muscular contraction, or suction, gradually 

 draws the frog into its mouth, its jaws expanding 

 and stretching in the most extraordinary and incon- 

 ceivable manner, in order to admit of the dispro- 

 portioned mouthful. 



I have little doubt that many birds and other 

 animals are in reality fascinated by the fixed gaze of 

 a snake, when they once come under the immediate 

 influence of his eye. Their presence of mind and 

 power of escape, or even of moving, seems entirely 

 to desert them when their enemy is near them, and 



