The rattlesnake is a viviparous animal, and is said to practise the same extraordinary mode of preserving its young from danger as is ascribed to the viper in Europe, that is, by receiving them into its mouth and swallowing them. M. de Beauvois, in the relation of his travels, declares that he was himself an eye-witness of this process. Happening, in his walk, to disturb a large rattlesnake, the creature immediately coiled itself up, opened its jaws, and instantly five small ones, which were lying near it, rushed into its mouth. He retired, and watched the snake, and in a quarter of an hour saw her again discharge them. He then approached the second time, when the young retired into its mouth with greater celerity than before, and the suake immediately moved off among the grass, and escaped. THE COBRA DE CAPELLO. THE following interesting account of this very curious snake, a native of India, is extracted from Forbes' Oriental Memoirs, a work the merits of which cannot be sufficiently praised. "The Cobra de Capello, or hooded-snake (coluber naja), called by the Indians the naag, or nagao, is a large and beautiful serpent; but one of the most venemous of all the coluber class; its bite generally proves mortal in less than an hour. It is called the hooded-snake, from having a curious hood near the head, which it contracts or enlarges at pleasure; the centre of this hood is marked in black and white like a pair of spectacles, whence it is also named the spectacle snake. "Of this genus are the dancing-snakes, which are carried in baskets throughout Hindostan, and procure a maintenance for a set of people, who play a few simple notes on the flute, with which the snakes seem much delighted, and keep time by a graceful motion of the head, erecting about half their length from the ground, and following the music with gentle curves, like the undulating lines of a swan's neck. It is a well attested fact, that when a house is infested with these snakes, and some other of the coluber genus, which destroy poultry and small domestic animals, as also by the larger serpents of the boa tribe, the musicians are sent for; who, by playing on a flagelet, find out their hiding-places, and charm them to destruction: for no sooner do the snakes hear the music than they come softly from their retreat,.. and are easily taken. I imagine these musical snakes were known in Palestine, from the Psalmist comparing the ungodly to the deaf adder, which stoppeth her ears, and refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. "When the music ceases the snakes appear motionless; but if not immediately covered up in the basket, the spectators are liable to fatal accidents. Among my drawings is that of a Cobra de Capello, which danced for an hour on the table while I painted it; during which I frequently handled it, to observe the beauty of the spots, and especially the spectacles on the hood, not doubting but that its venomous fangs had been previously extracted. But the next morning my upper servant, who was a zealous Mussulman, came to me in great haste, and desired I would instantly retire, and praise the Almighty for my good fortune; not understanding his meaning, I told him that I had already performed my devotions, and had not so many stated prayers as the followers of his prophet. Mahomed then informed me, that while purchasing some fruit in the bazar, he observed the man who had been with me the preceding evening, entertaining the country people with his dancing snakes; they, according to their usual custom, sat on the ground around him; when, either from the music stopping too suddenly, or from some other cause irritating the vicious reptile which I had so often handled, it darted at the throat of a young woman, and inflicted a wound of which she died in about half an hour. Mahomed once more repeated his advice for praise and thanksgiving to Alla, and recorded me in his calendar as a lucky man." THE CERASTES, OR HORNED SNAKE. THIS curious species is a native of many parts of Africa, and is also frequent in Egypt, Syria, and Arabia. It is about two feet in length, and is distinguished by a pair of horns, or curved processes, situated above the eyes, and pointing forwards: these horns have not any thing analogous in their structure to the horns of quadrupeds, and are by no means to be considered in the light of offensive or defensive weapons: they increase however the natural antipathy so generally felt against the serpent tribe, and give the animal a more than ordinary appearance of malignity. Its bite is much to be dreaded, since, exclusive of the general danger of treading accidentally on this reptile, and thus irritating it unawares, it possesses a propensity to spring suddenly to a considerable distance, and assail without provocation those who happen to approach it. "When," Mr. Bruce observes, ❝he inclines to surprise any one, the Cerastes creeps with his side towards the person, and his head averted, till judg ing his distance, he turns round, springs upon him, and fastens on the part next to him.” On the subject of the incantation of serpents this celebrated traveller remarks as follows: "There is not any doubt of its reality: the scriptures are full of it; and those who have been in Egypt have seen as many different instances as they chose. Some have suspected that it was a trick, and that the animals so handled had been first trained, and then disarmed of the power of hurting; and, fond of the discovery, have rested themselves upon it, without experiment, in the face of all antiquity. But I will not hesitate to aver, that I have seen at Cairo (and this may be seen daily, without trouble or expense) a man who came from above the catacombs, where the pits of the mummy birds are kept, who has taken a Cerastes with his naked hand, from a number of others lying at the bottom of a tub, has put it upon his bare head, covered it with the common red cap he wears, then taken it out, put it on his breast, and tied it about his neck like a necklace; after which it has been applied to a hen, and bit it, which has died in a few minutes; and, to complete the experiment, the man has taken it by the neck, and, beginning at the tail, has eaten it, as one would do a carrot, or a stock of celery. "However lively the snake may have been before, when he is seized by any of these barbarians, he seems as if taken with sickness and feebleness, frequently shuts his eyes, and never turns his mouth towards the arm of the person who holds him. On their being questioned how they are exempted from its attack, the gravest and most respectable among the Egyptians reply that they were born so; while the lower sort talk of enchantments by words and by writing. They all pretend to prepare any person by remedies, that is, by decoctions of herbs and roots. Be this as it may, the records of history attest, that where any country has been remarkably infested by serpents, there the people. have been screened by a secret of some kind. Thus it was with the Psylli and Maronides of old." "Tame at whose spell the charm'd Cerastes lay." GREAT VIPER OF MARTINIQUE. THIS formidable reptile is peculiar to the islands of Martinique, St. Lucie, and Beconia, and has never been traced to the American continent. On account of its triangular head, resembling that of a spear, it has been named by the French naturalist TRIGONOCEPHALUS: when full grown it is nearly eight feet in length, and its bite is highly dangerous. Its agility is, as well as its mode of darting, very remarkable: it rolls the body in four circles, one upon another, the circumvolutions of which incline all at once at the will of the animal, so as to throw the whole mass forward five or six feet. After the manner of the crested or hooded snake, it can raise itself upright on its tail, and thus attain the height of a man; at the same time that, by means of large scales, laid over each other, with which the belly is covered, this serpent, like the adder, can climb large trees, and creep among the branches, in order to reach the birds' nests, whose young he devours, and in which he has often been found coiled up. FASCINATING POWER OF SNAKES. A REMARKABLE instance of the fascinating power of snakes is given in Lichtenstein's travels in Southern Africa. In rambling in the fields near Cape Town, he saw, at the brink of a ditch, a large snake in pursuit of a field mouse. The poor animal was just at its hole, when it seemed in a moment to stop, as if unable to proceed, and without being touched by the snake, to be palsied with terror. The snake had raised its head over him, had opened its mouth, and seemed to fix its eyes stedfastly upon him. Both remained still awhile; but as soon as the mouse made a motion, as if to flee, the head of the snake instantly followed the movement, as if to stop his way. This sport lasted four or five minutes, till the author's approach put an end to it: the snake then snapped up his prey hastily, and glided away with it to a neighbouring bush. "As I had," he observes, "heard a great deal of this magic power in the snake over smaller animals, it was very interesting to me to see a spe cimen of it. I think it may be made a question, however, whether the poisonous breath of the reptile might not really have had the effect of paralysing the limbs of the mouse, rather than that its inability to move proceeded either from the fixed eye of the snake, or the apprehension of inevitable death. It is remarkable, and very certain, that serpents will sport with their prey, as cats do, before they kill it.” This author notices several peculiarities of the snakes of South Africa. A very rare description of serpent is there called the SPURTING SNAKE. It is from three to four feet long, of a black colour, and has the singular property, as the colonists assert, that, when it is attacked, it spurts out its venom, and knows how to give it such a direction as to hit the eyes of the person making the attack. This is followed by violent pain, and by so great an inflammation, that it frequently occasions the entire loss of the sight. The POF-ADDER, one of the most poisonous species, is distinguishable by a disproportionate thickness, and by a body handsomely spotted with black and white spots on a brownish ground. It has this peculiarity, that, when it is enraged, it swells out its neck to a very great size. One which was caught, measured in length about an ell and a half, and was about six inches round in its greatest circumference. One of the species, called the TREE SNAKE, was caught while in the act of climbing up the wall of a farmhouse, to take the swallows which had their nests under the roof. This snake is extremely adroit at climbing, and is, therefore a terrible enemy to small birds. Its bite is extremly venomous, and is considered as mortal. The one here noticed, measured six feet in length, with a black back, and greyish belly. In the belly were found six halfdigested young swallows.-The LEMON SNAKE measures about five feet in length, and has a skin of a fine lemoncolour, regularly spotted with black. THE ELEPHANT. How instinct varies in the grov'lling swine, РОРЕ. THE largest elephants are from ten to eleven feet in height: some are said to exceed it; but the average is eight or nine |