ORDER OPHIDIA. 813 



have left us accounts of the dance which the Indians make 

 the naia perform. We also know, beyond any doubt, that 

 the Egyptian jugglers cause the asp of the ancients, the haje 

 of the modern Arabs, to play a variety of tricks at the word 

 of command, and that they seem to imitate the magicians of 

 Pharaoh, who pretended to turn their rods into serpents. 

 It is also a remarkable fact, that music has a very consider- 

 able influence on these animals, to which we cannot other- 

 wise attribute any very large portion of sensibility. The 

 Viscount de Chateaubriand relates, that in 1791, in the 

 month of July, in Upper Canada, on the banks of the Gene- 

 see, he saw a native appease the anger of a rattle-snake, and 

 even cause it to follow him, merely by the music of his flute, 

 without having recourse to any other method. 



The coral serpent, which is found in Florida, is extremely 

 gentle, capable of a certain degree of domestication, and is 

 worn around the neck as a collar by the women of that coun- 

 try. Even in Europe women have been known to tame the 

 collared adder (coluber natriw), which reptile, as well as 

 others of the race, has shown itself susceptible of some degree 

 of attachment to those who take care of it. 



It is but rarely, as we have already remarked, that the 

 serpents will attack man without being highly provoked to do 

 so, and we may observe here, that their poison is more sub- 

 tile and active in proportion to the heat of the climate which 

 they inhabit. The hot and humid steppes and savannahs of 

 Asia and America, and the burning sky of the African de- 

 serts, seem by far the best suited to the multiplication and 

 developement of these reptiles. Only fifteen or sixteen of 

 their species inhabit Europe, while Russel has described 

 forty-three merely for the coasts of Bengal and Coromandel. 

 Equatorial America, scorched by the burning rays of tlie sun, 

 and incessantly watered by those immense rivers whicli roll 

 the tribute of their waves towards its eastern boimdaries, fur- 



