NATUEAL SCIENCE NEWS. 



131 



the snake's tongue. Dr. Stradling 

 has also seen a frog doing the same 

 thing. 



Were this seen to occur in a 

 wild bird, it might easily be put 

 down to fascination. With regard 

 to snakes that kill their prey by 

 the injection of poison, it is even 

 more easy to account for the ap- 

 pearance of the power, for they 

 bite once and once only. The poi- 

 son does not kill at once; the vic- 

 tim nutters on to a branch, it ma}' 

 be, or runs a short distance and 

 stops, the snake watches it, the 

 poison does its deadly work, and 

 the bird falls. An)' one who comes 

 up not having seen the attack- 

 might in this^way be readily de- 

 ceived into imagining that it was 

 the glance of the snake and not 

 the poison that caused the victim 

 to fall. It may be then the ap- 

 proach of an insectivorous bird or 

 mammal who, taking the move- 

 ments of the snake's tongue for 

 those of a worm or insect, hopes 

 to secure a meal. It may be the 

 mobbing of the snake by the com- 

 panions of a victim that has been 

 seized, or of a mother whose nest 

 has been robbed; it may be simply 

 the effect of .poison already inject- 

 ed before the observer has come 

 upon the scene, or it ma)' be sim- 

 ple curiosity. 



These explanations should suf- 

 fice to satisfy all those whose 

 minds are not so filled with the 

 love of mystery as to make them 

 prefer to believe in the posses- 

 sion of this power, simply because 

 it is mysterious, and therefore, to 

 refuse a common sense explana- 

 tion. 



In ninety-nine cases out of a 

 hundred one or other of the above 

 causes has been at work. What, 

 then of the hundredth case, and 

 what about the fascination exercis- 

 ed on man, cases of which have 

 undoubtedly been recorded? The 

 explanation lies in the probability 

 that it is a case of hypnotism: it 

 may be said, however, "this is giv- 

 ing up the whole argument and ad- 

 mitting that a snake can fascinate, 

 only it is calling the power by an- 

 other name and saying that it can 

 hypnotise. But this is not so. 

 The snake does not hypnotise, the 

 person is self -mesmerized; the ac- 

 tion is purely subjective. Every 

 one knows the school boy trick of 

 holding a cock with its beak press- 

 ed against a table and drawing a 

 chalk line from the tip of the beak 

 along the table. The bird will re- 

 main in the position it has been 

 placed in, though perfectly free to 

 move. Now the snake no more 



exercises the power voluntarily 

 than does the chalk line; position 

 and tactile impression here pro- 

 duce hypnotism, and visual im- 

 pression can produce it likewise. 

 It is an error to suppose will pow- 

 er has anything to do with the ef- 

 fect. The matter has been taken 

 up scientifically by the medical 

 profession, especially in France, 

 and it has been found that the hyp- 

 notic state of sleep or trance, or 

 whatever it may be termed, can be 

 produced by looking fixedly at 

 the operator or at a coin or at 

 the tip of one's own nose; it is not 

 necessary to go out into the ques- 

 tion of how the result is brought 

 about, but there is a physiological 

 explanation. What happens then 

 in the hundredth case is that the 

 man or the animal may be self hip- 

 notized by gazing fixedly at the 

 snake, the subject, being thus 

 thrown into a sort of a trance, 

 making no attempt to move out of 

 danger, unless roused by some ex- 

 terior influence. 



We may conclude, then, that 

 the attribution to snakes of the 

 power of fascination is due to faul- 

 ty observation and the drawing of 

 conclusions from incorrect premi- 

 ses. — Harold S. Ferguson, F. L. S., 

 in Science-Gossip. 



Ree Hills, S. D. Fossils. 



Dr. Wm. M. Blackburn of Pierre 

 University, S. D., and one of the 

 leading geologist of the state, has 

 been on a professional visit at Ree 

 Hills, S. D., and various reports 

 have been sent out regarding the 

 finds made by him. The reports 

 were contradictory. A reporter 

 pointed out the following item in 

 an exchange: 



• "Dr. Blackburn, president of 

 Pierre University, while searching 

 in the Ree Hills last week found a 

 fine chalk ledge and a bed of inter- 

 esting fossil fish, among them, one 

 specimen of a hitherto unknown 

 variety. " 



The doctor smiled and said: 

 "That is one among several ver- 

 sions of a fossil fish story. It states 

 both too much and too little. I 

 have not claimed to be the discov- 

 erer of the chalk beds, nor of any 

 commercial value in them, nor ev- 

 en of the fact that they contained 

 the bones, fins, scales and prints 

 (not petrifications) of fishes. The 

 Magnesian chalk and some of its 

 fossils were known by the early 

 surveyors and settlers and mineral 

 claims were filed upon the beds. 

 Visitors made a slight examination 



of them and took away imperfect 

 samples of fossil fishes and plants, 

 but did not determine their species 

 nor geological position. 



••Seven or eight years ago Prof. 

 J. C. Collester (now M. D. ) and 1 

 went to those hills and put in some 

 hard work excavating one of those 

 chalk beds. Our motive was pure- 

 ly scientific. One result was a de- 

 termination of the chalk as a de- 

 posit in a fresh water lake of the 

 tertiary period, probably miocene 

 and more recent than the creta- 

 ceous formation so common to our 

 vast plains, if not later than the 

 great lake in which the deposits of 

 the White river bad lands were 

 laid. The Ree lake may have 

 been quite extended, and those 

 layers of chalk are like fragments 

 of a broken platter whose rim has 

 been carried away. Those patches 

 of chalk are evidently the remnants 

 of a lake bottom left in the top of 

 the high land that was not washed 

 away in a great erosion which 

 pared off the surface of the sur- 

 rounding plain. Thus the chalk 

 layers in the Ree Hills may be a 

 means of measuring the amount of 

 erosion in the plain since the lake 

 was drained, leaving enough of its 

 original bottom to make the upper 

 part of the Ree Hills. 



"Another result was the identi- 

 fication of the fossil fishes. My 

 samples of them were not the first 

 from that locality sent to the fa- 

 mous expert, Prof. E. D. Cope of 

 Philadelphia, but they were more 

 complete and there were more var- 

 ieties of them. He found among 

 them five species, of which three 

 were general, all entirely new to 

 science. They were lost fishes of 

 paleontology, now taken on the 

 hill tops. 



"Yes, one was named by him 

 after me, a sardine, Sardinms 

 Blackburnii. I think that among 

 those recently unearthed are sam- 

 ples of one or two species not 

 found before. 



"Traces of shells and plants 

 were found in those chalk beds, in 

 which further exploration should 

 be made to learn more of their 

 contents, their depth and the later- 

 al extent of the ancient lake. No 

 traces of its rim have yet been dis- 

 covered. " 



Pierre, S. D., August 31. 



Home-seekers excursions via 

 Nickel Plate road, Sept. 9th and 

 23d. For all information, call on 

 agents or address F. J. Moore, 

 General Agent, 23 Exchange St., 

 Buffalo, N. Y. 



