FABLES Ara PEEJUDICES. 
107 
pleased to repeat to strangers passing tlirougli their coun- 
try. One is astonished to hear of sea-snakes of monstrous 
size of boas from forty to fifty feet long that attack men, 
oxen, tigers, and svfallow them whole, after having covered 
them with a frothy saliva :t absurdities that bring to re- 
collection those fables of winged monsters or dragons, of 
which the mythology of the ancient people of Asia has 
preserved the remembrance, and of which the wayward 
fancy of the Chinese has multiplied the forms. What 
shall we say on reading in modern works of great re- 
putation, descriptions of the marvellous effects produced 
on serpents by music ; when travellers of talent tell us 
they have seen young snakes retreat into the mouth 
of their mother, every time that they were menaced with 
danger ! Unfortunately naturalists, in classing such 
fables with the number of facts, have often embellished with 
them their descriptions, and thus have contributed to give 
them universal acceptation. Who, for instance, will not be 
struck with the description which Latreille and Lace- 
PEDE have drawn up of the habits of the boa, and of other 
serpents of great size ! How many qualities have not these 
philosophers attributed to those beings, which have never 
existed, except in their own imaginations ! 
Every one has heard of the pretended magic power 
which serpents are said to exercise over small animals, 
when they wish to catch them : there are few works on 
natural history which have not treated of this phenome- 
non, contradicted by some, and defended by others, with- 
out their being able to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. 
I shall not here repeat the absurdities which travellers 
have written on this head, and which are sometimes ex- 
tremely curious 4 suffice it to say, that these tales, of 
which the traces may be found in several classic authors, § 
are particularly in vogue in North America, while they 
are unknown in the East Indies and in Europe, countries 
rich in serpents of every species. This observation is too 
* See the article Hydrophis in the descriptive part of my work. 
t See the article Boa, 
f See Levaillant, 2de Voyage, i. p. 93 ; Babrow, Trav. p. 120. 
§ ^lian, ii. 21 ; Pomponius Mela, i. 19. 
