Part 24

Introd. à l'Entom., ii. 143.

Op. cit., viii. 163.

Westwood's Mod. Classif. Ins., ii. 430.

Introd. to Entom. Lett. xxv.

Mag. Nat. Hist., New Ser., i. 353.

Ibid., i. 553.

Dr Boisduval, one hot evening in June, found caterpillars on grass which diffused a phosphorescent light; he thought them to be those of Mamestra oleracca--one of the most abundant of our moths--but they seemed larger than common; and whether owing to want of care in the rearing or to a condition of disease--which may, indeed, have been the cause of their luminosity--none of them attained the chrysalis state, and so the species was not absolutely decided.

Introd. to Entom., loc. cit.

Exped. into Int. of Brazil.

Tennent, Ceylon, ii. 226.

Probably we should read "diameter" for "circumference." A spider whose legs cover an area of six inches in circumference is by no means rare even in England.

Journ. Asiat. Soc.

Proc. Entom. Soc., November 1, 1852.

Proc. Entomol. Soc., July 2, 1855.

VIII.

FASCINATION.

It is a notion of long standing and widely diffused, that certain predaceous animals have a power, which, however, they only occasionally exert, of paralysing the creatures on which they prey, so as utterly to take away the faculty of flight, and even, in some circumstances, of drawing them, as if by an irresistible influence, to their known and dreaded destruction. This fascinating power has been most generally attributed to serpents, and is supposed to reside in a peculiar glare and fixity of the eyes, which appear to mesmerise the victims. If the gaze be interrupted, on either part, though but for a moment, it is supposed that the spell is broken. Is there any such power? or is it merely one of the many myths with which popular natural history is still burdened, and which it is the province of real science to explode? Let us gather together a few of the facts on which the opinion rests.

I am not sure whether I ought to reckon as such the following statement, for I do not know the value of the authority on which it rests. It is, however, sufficiently curious.

Dr Bird, a somewhat appropriate authority in this case, mentions an incident which happened in America. "Two boys lighted by chance upon a large black snake; upon which one of them resolved to ascertain whether the snake, so celebrated for its powers, could fascinate him. He advanced a few steps nearer the snake, and made a stand, steadily looking on him. When the snake observed him in that situation, he raised his head with a quick motion, and the lad says, that at that instant there appeared something to flash in his eyes, which he could compare to nothing more similar than the rays of light thrown from a glass or mirror when turned in the sun-shine; he said it dazzled his eyes; at the same time the colours appeared very beautiful ... he felt as if he was in a whirlpool, and that every turn brought him nearer to the centre. His comrade seeing him approach nearer to the snake, immediately ran and killed it."

There is, however, better authority than this for the belief in serpent-mesmerism. Professor Kalm states of the Rattlesnake of North America, that it will frequently lie at the bottom of a tree on which a squirrel is seated. The snake fixes his eyes upon the little animal, and from that moment it cannot escape: it begins a doleful outcry, runs up the tree a little way, comes down again, then goes up, and afterwards comes still lower. The snake continues at the bottom of the tree, with its eyes fixed on the squirrel; and its attention is so entirely taken up, that a person accidentally approaching may make a considerable noise, without so much as the snake's turning about. The squirrel comes lower, and at last leaps down to the snake, whose mouth is already wide open for its reception. The little animal then, with a piteous cry, runs into its jaws and is swallowed.

Catesby, though he says he never saw the phenomenon himself, reports the same thing on the testimony of many witnesses, who all agreed that the animals, particularly birds and squirrels, no sooner spy the snake than they skip from spray to spray, hovering and approaching gradually nearer their enemy, regardless of any other danger; but with distracted gestures and outcries descend, though from the top of the loftiest trees, to the mouth of the snake, who, opening his jaws, takes them in and in an instant swallows them.

More recently Acrell tells the same story, as unquestionable. He declares that as the snake, who is the most indolent of all serpents, lies under the shade of a tree, opening his jaws a little, he fixes his brightly-glittering eyes on any bird or squirrel which is in it. The squirrel, uttering a mournful and feeble cry, leaps from bough to bough, as if seeking to escape, but presently, as if struck with the fascination, he comes down the tree, and flings himself, with a spring, into the very jaws of his enemy. A mouse, shut up with a rattlesnake in an iron box, at first sat in one corner, the snake opposite to it. The reptile fixed its terrible eye on the little trembler, which at length threw itself into the mouth of the serpent.

Lawson affirms that he has seen the phenomenon actually take place with a squirrel and a rattlesnake.

I said that the belief is widely spread. We have seen it in North America; we will now look at it in Africa.

Captain Forbes incidentally mentions a case analogous to these. Passing through some high grass at Ahomey, he observed, within an inch of his leg, a small lizard, with its eyes fixed. It did not move at his approach. At the same moment a cobra darted at it, and before he could raise his stick, bore the victim away. The captain naturally enough was occupied with his own narrow escape, and simply narrates the facts without comment; but the fixity of the gaze, and the motionlessness of the lizard, were not a little remarkable.

Mr Ellis, in his charming volume on Madagascar and the Cape, makes the following observations:--

"In a country abounding, as Africa does, with serpents, I expected to hear many anecdotes respecting them; and, conversing on one occasion with Mr Pullen, a farmer who has lived many years in the country, and seemed to have paid rather more than usual attention to this species of reptile, he said he once saw a mouse running in a field, and that, coming in sight of a snake, though at a considerable distance, it instantly stopped. The snake fixed its eye on the mouse, which then crept slowly towards the snake, and, as it approached nearer, trembled and shrieked most piteously, but still kept approaching until quite close, when it seemed to become prostrate, and the snake then devoured it. On another occasion he had watched a snake capture a mouse in the same manner; but, as it was retreating, he followed, and struck it on the back with a stick, when it opened its mouth, and the mouse escaping, ran for some distance, then fell down; but after a minute recovered and ran away. Another time he said he watched a snake in the water, which had fixed its eye on a frog sitting amongst the grass on the bank. The frog, though greatly alarmed, seemed unable to stir, until Mr Pullen gradually pushed a rush growing near so that it intervened between the eye of the snake and its intended victim, when the frog, as if suddenly liberated, darted away. Mr Pullen's ideas were in accordance with the popular notion, that the snake has the power of exercising some mesmeric or other influence through the steady fixing of its eye, and that whatever intercepts this gaze breaks, as it were, the charm, and sets the prisoner free."

A most important witness on this matter is Dr Andrew Smith, the learned zoologist of South Africa, who thus soberly throws the weight of his own thoroughly competent and most conclusive personal observations into the affirmative scale. In his interesting account of the Boomslange, a serpent of considerable size found in that region, he says:--