FASCINATION OF PREY. 323 



' A man of undoubted probity, some time since, told 

 me that as he was in the woods he observed a squirrel 

 in great distress, dancing from one bough to another, 

 and making a lamentable noise, till at last he came 

 do^vn the tree and ran behind a log. The person going 

 to see what had become of him, spied a great snake 

 that had swallowed him. And I am the rather con- 

 firmed in this relation, because my own brother, being 

 in the woods, opened one of these snakes, and found 

 two striped squirrels in his belly, and both of them 

 head foremost. When they charm, they make a 

 hoarse noise with their mouths, and a soft rattle with 

 their tails, the eye at the same time fixed upon the 

 prey.' 



For my own part, I incline to the opinion that 

 rattlesnakes charm their prey ; and if a case has never 

 chanced to come under my notice, many stories have 

 been related by persons whose truth is above suspicion. 

 Philosophers who study snakes from stuffed specimens, 

 and write very learned books after seeing the reptile 

 in a bottle of spirits of wane, may perhaps doubt ; and 

 there is nothing in the example before them to lead 

 them to believe that snakes have such fascinating 

 manners. They may say that the story arises from the 

 fears and cries of birds and other animals, whose nests 

 or young have been destroyed, and that the anxiety 

 of the parent bird makes it fall an easy prey to the 

 crafty reptile. But all who have seen the reptile in 



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