Note 49 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS. (continued 4)

The Rattle snake often devours the squirrels, notwithstanding all their agility. This unwieldy creature, is said to catch so agile an one, merely by fascination. I have never had an opportunity of seeing how it is done: but so many credible people assured me of the truth of the fact, and asserted that they were present, and paid peculiar attention to it, that I am almost forced to believe their unanimous accounts. The fascination is effected in the following manner: the snake lies at the bottom of the tree upon which the squirrel sits; its eyes are fixed upon the little animal, and from that moment it cannot escape; it begins a doleful outcry, which is so well known, that a person passing by, on hearing it, immediately knows that it is charmed by a snake. The squirrel runs up the tree a little way, comes downwards again, then goes up, and now comes lower again. On that occasion it has been observed, that the squirrel always goes down more than it goes up. The snake still continues at the root of the tree, with its eyes fixed on the squirrel, with which its attention is so entirely taken up, that a person accidentally approaching, may make a considerable noise, without the snake’s so much as turning about. The squirrel as before-mentioned comes always lower, and at last leaps down to the snake, whose mouth is already wide open for its reception. The poor little animal then with a piteous cry runs into the snake’s jaws, and is swallowed at once, if it be not too big; but if its size will not allow it to be swallowed at once, the snake licks it several times with its tongue, and smoothens it, and by that means makes it fit for swallowing. Every thing else remarkable at this enchantment, I have described in a treatise inserted in the Memoirs of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in the Volume for the year 1753, I therefore am not so circumstantial here. The same power of enchanting is ascribed to that kind of snake, which is commonly called the black snake in America, and it is said to catch and devour squirrels in the same manner as the former.49