Part 26

Large insects often play around this fire. Beetles "wheel their drony flight" in buzzing circles round for a few turns, and are gone; and moths come fluttering about, and often scorch their plumy wings. I have taken some very fine Sphinges and other moths thus; and the only specimen I ever saw of that very curious insect the Mole-cricket alive (a species distinct from, but very closely allied to, our European insect) was one that suddenly dashed into the ashes of the light-stand--a curious and interesting circumstance, when connected with the opinion that I have before alluded to, that the Gryllotalpa Europæa is one of the producers of the Ignis fatuus.

Birds also are attracted by light at night. I have read of a Titmouse that was seen fluttering around a gas-lamp in the suburbs of London, and would not be driven away; it at length made its entrance into the lamp through the orifice at the bottom, and continued to flit around and across the jet. In 1832, a Herring-gull struck one of the mullions of the Bell Rock Light-house with such force, that two of the polished plates of glass, measuring about two feet square, and a quarter of an inch in thickness, were shivered to pieces, and scattered over the floor in a thousand atoms, to the great alarm of the keeper on watch, and the other inmates of the house, who rushed instantly to the light-room. The gull was found to measure five feet between the tips of the wings. In his gullet was a large herring, and in his throat a piece of plate-glass of about one inch in length.

Dr Livingstone gives some curious examples of the attractive power of fire over various creatures in South Africa, which he attributes to a sort of fascination. "Fire," he says, "exercises a fascinating effect on some kinds of toads. They may be seen rushing into it on the evenings without ever starting back on feeling pain. Contact with the hot embers rather increases the energy with which they strive to gain the hottest parts, and they never cease their struggles for the centre, even when their juices are coagulating and their limbs stiffening in the roasting heat. Various insects also are thus fascinated; but the scorpions may be seen coming away from the fire in fierce disgust, and they are so irritated as to inflict at that time their most painful stings."

Peter Pilgrim.

Hist. of Carolina.

Amænit. Acad.

Hist. of Carolina.

Dahomey and the Dahomans.

Visits to Madagascar, 231.

Zoology of South Africa--Reptilia.

Oiseaux d'Afrique.

Times Newspaper, November 9, 1852.

Zoologist, 7273.

Zoologist, 7382.

Quoted in the Zoologist, 2397.

Pict. Museum, ii. 107.

Reptiles, (Rel. Tr. Soc.,) 206.

Bengal Sporting Mag. for Oct. 1836; cited in the Zoologist, 5070.

Zool., 5214.

Zool., 7273.

Zool. 4049, 4050.

Travels, 144.

IX.

SERPENT-CHARMING.

From the day when the solemn doom was pronounced,--"I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed," the serpent-form has begotten revulsion and dread in the human breast. And deservedly; for a venomous serpent is a terrible enemy: the direful venom of sin injected by "that old serpent, the Devil," is well symbolised by the most potent of all lethic agencies,--the poison of the rattlesnake or the cobra.

And yet in all ages there have been persons in the countries where the most venomous snakes abound, who have professed, and have been believed to enjoy, an absolute immunity from their bites, and even to exercise some inexplicable power over them, whereby their rage is soothed, and they are rendered for the time gentle and harmless. The Holy Scriptures repeatedly allude to this ancient art. The Magicians of Egypt, who turned their rods into serpents, are supposed to have had recourse to a secret known, it is said, to the modern conjurors of the same country, who, by pressing the nape of the neck of the cobra with their fingers, throw it into a sort of catalepsy, by which its whole body becomes rigid like a rod, and from which it is relieved by suddenly throwing it on the ground. Aaron's rod was a veritable rod before and after the transaction, but changed into a serpent by Divine miraculous energy: theirs were serpents made to assume the appearance of rods for the moment by a cunning device.

Other and more direct allusions, however, occur to the art of serpent-charming. Thus the obduracy of the wicked is compared to "the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely." And the Aseverity of the Chaldean invaders is depicted under this imagery:--"Behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD."

Among the ancient Romans the Psylli, a people of Africa, and the Marsi, a German tribe who had settled in Italy, were reputed to have the power of charming serpents, and to be endowed with immunity from the results of their venom. Celsus, however, maintains that this power consisted in an acquaintance with the fact, now well known, that animal poisons are hurtful only when mingled with the blood. They may therefore be taken into the mouth with perfect impunity. With reference to so great an authority, however, there is more in the art and mystery of serpent-charming than this.