FASCINATION BY SERPENTS. A power has long been popularly ascribed to ser pents, or at least to sonic kinds of them, of fascinating by their eye the small animals on which they prey, so as to prevent the escape of the intended victim, when its escape would otherwise be easy, and to cause it rather to run or flutter into the mouth which is open to devour it. This popular notion has been ridiculed, but is supported by a large amount of evidence, and has been fully adopted by some of the most scientific observers. In the earlier part of last century, Kalm described the rattlesnake as frequently lying at the bottom of a tree, on which a squirrel is seated, and fixing its eyes on the little animal, which from that moment cannot escape, but begins a doleful outcry, comes towards the snake, runs a little bit away, conies nearer, and finally is swallowed, Le Vaillant describes a similar scene, as witnessed by him in Africa, a shrike incapable of moving away from a serpent which was gazing fixedly at it, and dying of fear, although the ser pent was killed. Dr. Andrew Smith states that the presence of a non-venomous South African tree-snake, oneephalus viriclie, in a tree, causes the birds of the neighborhood to collect around it and fly to and fro, uttering piercing cries, "until some one, more terror-struck than the rest, actually scans its lips, and almost without resistance, becomes a meal for its enemy." He adds, "whatever may be said in ridicule of fascination, it is
nevertheless true that birds, and even quadrupeds, are, under certain circumstances, unable to retire from the presence of certain of their enemies; and what is even more extraordinary, unable to resist the propensity to advance from a situation of actual safety, into one of most imminent danger. This I have often seen exemplified in the case of birds and snakes; and I have heard of instances equally curious, in which antelopes and other quadrupeds linlievbe* tlie,stisiden. appearance of crocodiles, and by the grimaces and contortions they practiced, as to be unable to fly, or even move from the spot towards which they were approaching to seize them." Ellis, in his Three Visits to Madagascar, records anecdotes of the same kind, and one in particular, of a frog apparently unable to move, until an 'object was pushed between it and the eye of the snake, when the frog immediately darted away, as if relieved from some mesmeric influ ence exerted over it.