ast leaps down to the snake, whose mouth is already wide
open for its reception. The little animal then, with a piteous cry, runs
into its jaws and is swallowed.

Catesby, though he says he never saw the phenomenon himself, reports the
same thing on the testimony of many witnesses, who all agreed that the
animals, particularly birds and squirrels, no sooner spy the snake than
they skip from spray to spray, hovering and approaching gradually nearer
their enemy, regardless of any other danger; but with distracted
gestures and outcries descend, though from the top of the loftiest
trees, to the mouth of the snake, who, opening his jaws, takes them in
and in an instant swallows them.[165]

More recently Acrell tells the same story, as unquestionable. He
declares that as the snake, who is the most indolent of all serpents,
lies under the shade of a tree, opening his jaws a little, he fixes his
brightly-glittering eyes on any bird or squirrel which is in it. The
squirrel, uttering a mournful and feeble cry, leaps from bough to bough,
as if seeking to escape, but presently, as if struck with the
fascination, he comes down the tree, and flings himself, with a spring,
into the very jaws of his enemy. A mouse, shut up with a rattlesnake in
an iron box, at first sat in one corner, the snake opposite to it. The
reptile fixed its terrible eye on the little trembler, which at length
threw itself into the mouth of the serpent.[166]

Lawson affirms that _he has seen_ the phenomenon actually take place
with a squirrel and a rattlesnake.[167]

I said that the belief is widely spread. We have seen it in North
America; we will now look at it in Africa.

Captain Forbes incidentally mentions a case analogous to these. Passing
through some high grass at Ahomey, he observed, within an inch of his
leg, a small lizard, with its eyes fixed. It did not move at his
approach. At the same moment a cobra darted at it, and before he could
raise his stick, bore the victim away. The captain naturally enough was
occupied with his own narrow escape, and simply narrates the facts
without comment; but the fixity of the gaze, and the motionlessness of
the lizard, were not a little remarkable.[168]

Mr Ellis, in his charming volume on Madagascar and the Cape, makes the
following observations:--[169]

"In a country abounding, as Africa does, with serpents, I expected to
hear many anecdotes respecting them; and, conversing on one occasion
with Mr Pullen,