312 CLASS REPTILIA. 



swallows them up. According to the report of many tra- 

 vellers, one would think that by the effect of some charm, 

 the durissus and boiquira, those redoubtable rulers of the 

 steppes of America, possess the power of forcing their prey 

 to fall into their mouths. At their aspect, it is said that 

 hares, rats, frogs and other reptiles seem petrified with terror, 

 and far from attempting to fly, will precipitate themselves 

 upon the fate which awaits them. Even at a sufficient 

 distance for escape, they are paralyzed by the sight of their 

 tremendous foe, and deprived of all their faculties in a man- 

 ner that appears wholly supernatural. 



But this fact, which is so interesting in animal phy- 

 siology, is not only far from being clearly explained, but 

 even far enough from being sufficiently demonstrated. Not- 

 withstanding the ingenious conjectures of Sir Hans Sloane 

 on this subject, the observations of Kalm, whose assertions 

 were implicitly received by Linnaeus ; those of Lawson, 

 Catesby, Brickel, Golden, Beverley, Bancroft, and Bar- 

 tram ; notwithstanding a work published ex professo on the 

 matter by Doctor Burton of Philadelphia, and notwith- 

 standing some recent accounts by Major Garden of this 

 stupifying power in the serpents, which he attribvites both 

 to the terror which they inspire, and to certain narcotic 

 emanations from their bodies at particular times, it must be 

 confessed that this subject is still liable to controversy, and 

 still involved in a considerable degree of obscurity. 



On the other hand, as the look of the dog stops the pro- 

 gress of the partridge, so we might imagine that the presence 

 of man has a considerable influence over the faculties of some 

 very justly dreaded serpents, and obliges them to obedience, 

 by, as it were, a certain kind of fascination. From the most 

 ancient time, certain hordes of Arabia, such as the Psylli and 

 the Marsi, were acquainted with some art of charming and 

 taming these reptiles Ksempfer, and many other travellers, 



