656 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1734. 



without any sustenance, and had in that time parted with its outer coat or 

 exuviae, which was found among the gravel. Captain Hall, a very under- 

 standing and observant person, who had lived many years in Virginia, ventured 

 to take the snake out of the box, though the poison from its bite is almost 

 instant death; for, he gave an instance of a person bitten, who was found dead 

 at the return of a messenger going to the next house to fetch a remedy, though 

 he was not gone above half an hour. Nay, so certain are the iiiortal effects 

 of this poison, that sometimes the waiting till an iron can be heated, in order 

 to burn the wound, is said to have proved fatal. This gentleman therefore 

 thought the securest way was immediately to cut out the part wiiere tlie wound 

 was made; for he had seen several, who carried these hollow scars about them, 

 as marks of the narrow escape they had had, and never felt any inconvenience 

 afterwards. 



An experiment was tried before several physicians, in the garden belonging 

 to their college in London. The Captain, by keeping the head fast with a 

 forked stick, and making a noose, which he put about the tail of the snake, 

 tied it fast to the end of another stick, wherewith he took him out of the box, 

 and laid him on the grass-plat. Then a dog being made to tread upon him, lie 

 bit the dog, which howled very bitterly, and went away some few yards distant 

 from the snake; but in about one minute of time he grew parai)tic in the 

 hinder legs, after the manner of dogs who have the aorta descendens tied. He 

 died in less tiian 3 minutes time, as is related by Mr. Kanby, in an account of 

 this experiment in Philos. Trans. N° 401, and by Captain Hall, N° 399. 



In Sir Hans's opinion, the whole mystery of enchanting or charming any 

 creature is chiefly this, viz. that when such animals as are their proper prey, as 

 small quadrupeds or birds, &c. are surprised by them, they bite them, and the 

 poison allows them time to run a small way, as our dog did, or perhaps a bird 

 to fly up into the next tree, where the snakes watch them with great earnest- 

 ness, till they fall down, or are perfectly dead, when having licked them over 

 with their spittle, they swallow them down; as the following accounts relate. 

 " Some people in England, says Colonel Beverley, in his History of Vir- 

 ginia, are startled at the very name of the rattle-snake, and fancy every corner 

 of that province so much pestered with them, that a man goes in constant 

 danger of his life, that walks abroad in the woods. But this is a gross mistake; 

 for this snake is very rarely seen, and when that happens, it never does the 

 least mischief, unless you offer to disturb it, and so provoke it to bite in its 

 own defence. There are several other snakes, which are seen more frequently, 

 and have very little or no hurt in them; as black-snakes, water-snakes, and 

 corn-snakes. The black viper-snake, and the copper-bellied-snake, are said to 



