SNAKE-POISON LITERATUSE. 17 



"There are several explanations of the stories ^'^faSSiion^'* 

 in which snakes are supposed to have fascinated 

 their victims — 'Fascination then,' says Miss 

 Hopley, ' may be sometimes imputed to curiosity, 

 sometimes to an anticipated morsel. It may 

 partake of fear, or it may be an involuntary 

 approach ; it may be struggles of a poisoned 

 creature unable to get away, or the maternal 

 anxieties of a bird or small mammal whose off- 

 spring has fallen a victim to the snake.' " 



The following amusing story appears in 

 Pepys's Diary under entry February 4th 1661-2. 

 " To Westminister Hall, when it was full terme. 

 Here all the morning, and at noon to my Lord 

 Crewe's, where one Mr. Templer (an ingenious 

 man, and a person of honor he seems to be) dined ; 

 and discoursing of the nature of serpents, he told 

 us some m the waste places of Lancashire do a marvellous 

 grew to great bigness, and do feed upon larks 

 which they take thus .-^They observe when the 

 lark is soared to the highest, and do crawl till 

 they come to be just underneath them ; and there 

 they place themselves with their mouth upper- 

 most, and there, as is conceived, they do inject 

 poison upon the bird ; for the bird do suddenly 

 come down again in its course of a circle, and 



