The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-09-19
FASCINATION ny SNAKES.
Does the Serpent HypnotiEe Its Vie
TINT

Harold 5. Ferguson. in Science Gossip.
No error is apparently more rooted in
the human mind than that which at
tributes to snakes peculiar power called
fascination" which they are believed
to be capable of voluntarily exercising.
by this power they are said to be able
to so paralyze their victims that they
are rendered utterly incapable of move
ment, and wait for the attack of a snake,
or even go forward to meet H., In fear
and trembling, but without any power OF
retaliation. Now any one who watches
the behavior of small animals placed
alive as food i'm the cages In which snakes
are kept in captivity, In the hope of see
ing this marvellous power In operation,
viii be grievousy disappointed, chickens.
rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, all move about
with an utter absence of fear Of the snakes.
1t may be said that all these are more
or less domesticated animals, and have no
hereditary dread of their natural enemy;
but wild rats, placed In the cage Of their
particular pursuer. the rat-snake Of India
(namenis mucosus). exhibit an absence OF
fear.
How. then, is It possible to account for
the existence of the belief in the posses
sion by snakes Of the so-called power OF
fascination? 1t may have arisen from
several causes. An observer may come
on the scene and find a number of birds
mobbing snake just as they will mob an
owl or kite. The dashes of the birds to-
ward the snake and their fluttering round
IL may easily he put down to the effect
Of the snakes glance while they are, In
reality, merely the attempts OF the bird to
drive off the intruder. mother bird
whose young are attacked will almost
certainly behave in this way, and may
herself fall a victim, not to the power
of fascination of the but m fha
force of her maternal feelings. Then again
II has been noticed that a hen placed in
a snakes cage will often go toward 1t
and make a determined peck at the snakes
tongue. Or. Stradling has also seen IA
frog doing the same thing.
Were this seen to occur In a wild bird,
It might easily be put down to fascna-
ton With regard TO snakes that kill their
prey by the injection OF poison Il is even
more easy to account for the appearance
of the power, for they bite once and once
only. The poison does not kill at once:
the victim fiutters on to branch IL may
be- or runs a short distance and stops, the
snake watches II, the poison does its
deadly work. and the bird falls. Any one
who comes up not having seen the at
tack might In this way be readily deceiV-
ed into imagining that II was the glance
of the snake and not the poison that
caused the victim to fall. 1t may be then
mammal who, taking the movements of
the snakes tongue for those of a worm
or insect, hopes to secure meal. 1t may
be the mobbing of the snake by the com
panions of victim that has been seized,
or of a mother whose nest has been robbed
or 1t may be simply the effect of poison
already injected before the observer has
come upon the scene, or IL may be sim
ply curiosity.
These explanations should suffice to sat
isfy all those whose minds are not so fill-
ed with the love Of mystery as to make
them prefer to believe in the possession
of this power, simply because II is mys-
FERROUS. and. therefore, to refuse COM
mon sense explanation.
In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
one or other of the above causes has
been at work. What, then, of the hum
dredth case, and what about the fasci-
nation exercised on man, cases of which
have undoubtedly been recorded7 The ex-
PLANTATION lies in the probability that II is
a case of hypnotism; IT may be said how
ever, this is giving up the whole argu-
ment and admitting that a snake can
fascinate, only it is calling the power by
another name and saying that 1t can hyp-
notize. But this is not 50.
The snake does not hypnotic, the per-
son is self-mesmerized the action is purely
subjective. Every one knows the school
boy trick of holding a cock with its beak
pressed against a table and drawing a
chalk line from the tip of the beak along
the table. The bird will remain in the DO
sition 1t has been placed in, though per-
fectly free to move. Now the snake no
more exercises the power voluntarily than
does the chalk line; position and tactile
impression here produce hypnotism, and
visual impression can produce it likewise
1t Is an error to suppose will power has
anything to do with the effect The mat
ter has been taken up scientifically by the
medical profession especially in France.
and it has been found that the hypnotic
state of sleep or trance or whatever 1t may
be termed, can be produced by looking
fixedly at the operator or at a coin or at the
tip of ones own nose; 1t Is not necessary to
go into the question of how the result is
brought about, but there Is a physiological
explanation. What happens then In the
hundredth case is that the man or the an
imal may be self-hypnotized by gazing
fixedly at the snake, the subject, being
thus thrown into a sort Of a trance, maxi
ing no attempt to move out Of danger, I'M
less reused by some exterior influence
We may conclude, then, that the attri-
button to SNAKES of the power of fascina-
ton Is due to faulty observation and the
drawing of conclusions from incorrect
premises.