CHARLES WATER TON AS A NATURALIST. 



make their escape without any inter- 

 vention in their favour except the 

 recovery of their own powers " (p. 

 179). The latter half of this ac- 

 count is not very clear ; perhaps 

 the appearance of a third party, 

 under certain circumstances, broke 

 the spell. If we turn to Waterton s 

 Life, page 51, we will find what was 

 apparently an exact counterpart of 

 this scene in an early stage of it; 

 so that he had witnessed part of the 

 " horridly fascinating power " with- 

 out being aware of it. In Gosse's 

 Naturalists Sojourn in Jamaica, 

 1871, we have the following: 

 " Sam has seen a boa ascend a 

 mango-tree, on one of whose 

 branches a fowl was perching, and 

 when at some distance from the 

 prey, begin to dart out and vibrate 

 its tongue, its eyes fixed on the fowl, 

 while it slowly and uniformly drew 

 near; the poor hen all the time in- 

 tently watching the foe, but without 

 stirring or crying. Help came 

 fortuitously, just as the snake was 

 about to strike, and the fowl was 

 rescued. How strange it is that in 

 widely remote parts of the world 

 we should hear the same state- 

 ments. Sam has never read what 

 other observers have described 

 about fascination, but he and others 

 affirm, from their own observation, 

 that some such power is exercised " 

 (p. 317). Waterton denied this 

 power or peculiarity in snakes, al- 

 though he was apparently within a 

 hair-breadth of witnessing it. But 

 how did he know that they did not 

 have it? Why, by peering into 

 their eyes, he could tell you, and tell 

 you infallibly, that they could not, 

 and therefore did not, have it ! He 

 gave it as an opinion that the eyes 

 of snakes are immovable, and yet in 

 his Wanderings he said that the 

 ?abarri snake k ' would appear to keep 

 his zyo. fixed on me, as though suspi- 

 cious, but that was all " (p. 190). 

 Why could not an immovable eye 

 have a glowing coal kindled up in- 

 side of it ? 



Again, Waterton says : " The 

 cast-off slough always appears inside 

 out " (p. 432). It would be inter- 

 esting to know how he learned that 

 as a fact in regard to all snakes ; or 

 if he could explain how a snake 

 could come out of its skin, turning 

 it " inside out," leaving the scales 

 that covered its eyes in the most 

 perfect and beautiful condition, and 

 the whole skin stretched out, al- 

 most as natural as when the snake 

 was inside of it.* Again, he says : 

 " Properly speaking, all snakes 

 are boa-constrictors " (p. 434)- I 

 would ask again, how did he learn 

 that? Did he see every kind of 

 snake catch and swallow its prey, to 

 know whether it was a constrictor or 

 not? When I met a garter snake 

 with a frog pretty well down its 

 throat, feet foremost, and appearing 

 at perfect ease, and killed it, so that 

 the frog hopped away, like any 

 other frog, I could certainly say 

 that that snake was not a constrict- 

 or in any sense of the word ; for a* 

 constrictor crushes its prey in al- 

 most a moment of time, and then 

 swallows it. W. Gordon Gumming 

 says that he made a daman, a 

 species of water -snake, seven or 

 eight feet long, in India, disgorge a 

 frog which was all swallowed but 

 the head, when the frog disappear- 

 ed among the weeds. That is 

 a very common occurrence in 

 America. Waterton says that the 

 boa-constrictor " swallows the tor- 

 toise alive, shell and all" (p. 186). 

 If he is right, the boa is not always 

 a constrictor, for she could hardly 

 crush the tortoise, and so would 

 " bolt " it as it stood. And it is 

 possible that the snakes that swallow 

 alive may constrict when there is to 

 be a fight for it. These matters 

 simply involve a question of evi- 

 dence. Surely some information 

 could be procured in English 

 collections of snakes, as to how 

 they shed their skins, and seize and 



* See note at page 2,2. 



