FASCINATION BY SNAKES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR"] SIR,—I was much interested in a subject recently referred to in your columns,—viz., the snake's power of fascinating its victims. Several instances of this peculiar power came to my notice during nine years of ranch-life in South-West Texas. On one occasion, when fishing one of the creeks in Concho County, I was surprised to see in the long grass and weeds fringing the pool, a young rabbit—locally termed a " cotton- tair—lying on its side, the limbs rigid and quivering, and the eyes glazed. A moment or two later, a few feet away, I spied a snake, which proved to be a rattlesnake, and which I sub- sequently killed, with neck and head poised in the air. I had unfortunately by my approach alarmed the snake, and so spoilt the opportunity of watching the "subsequent proceed. ings." The rabbit came to afterwards. On another oecesion, I may mention incidentally, I released a young rabbit from the jaws of a rattlesnake after killing the latter. The head and forequarters were soaked in saliva, but the little animal, which I took back in one of the pockets of my saddle to the ranch, ultimately recovered. I have also, on more than one occasion, seen a young prairie-dog similarly hypnotised by a snake, but on turning the dog over once or twice with my foot, it has promptly bolted down the nearest hole in the " dog-town." The bull snake, the biggest of the family in the Western States, is a tree-climber; but I have never seen him in a tree except after sundown, when the doves and other birds have gone to roost. It may be that he catches them asleep, but it is more probable that he does so by hypnotism. The snake's power of scent appears deficient at times, as I )nce killed near by the hen-house of my place a " chicken- make" which had undoubtedly been an egg-thief for some weeks previously, and noticing that he had an egg inside him, I opened him up, and discovered—a glass nest-egg ! These anecdotes, I may add, are facts, and not what are humorously
described as " snake-stories."—I am, Sir, &a., X. X. X.
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