the fallacy, here again, as in so many parallel cases, lies in the
advocating of some theory which will cover a certain number of the
facts, and the ignoring of all such as will not be so accounted for. Is
it to be supposed that Dr A. Smith could not distinguish between the
condition of involuntary paralysis of the faculties which he says he has
_often_ seen, and the insane boldness of nesting birds? Had the mice,
seen by Mr Pullen, had the frog, young ones to protect? Or the squirrel
mentioned by Kalm? or the mouse seen by Le Vaillant? or the eel in the
drain? But what is the value of a hypothesis,--so far as its claims to
solve this question are concerned,--which will not touch these cases?
When Mr Martin denies that there is anything mysterious in the matter,
and in the same sentence admits that "the victim may feel an impulse to
rush into the danger which it might escape," he just yields the whole
point. I venture to affirm that this _is_ something mysterious,
something totally unaccountable. I ask _what_, and _whence_, and _why_,
this strange impulse that overcomes the first of all instincts, the
prime law of self-preservation?

It does not explain the cause of the phenomenon, though it possibly
helps us to determine its proper seat, to learn that fascination belongs
to other animals besides the serpent tribes. We shall perhaps not err if
we conclude that the peculiarity resides not in the object, but in the
subject; that it is a mental emotion capable of being excited by objects
having little in common except the death-terror which they excite. I
have no doubt that it is a phase of extreme terror; the singularity of
the phenomenon consists in the reversal of ordinary instinctive laws
which it induces. My readers will probably be interested in the details
of some cases in which the exciters of the emotion were animals other
than serpents. Here is one, apparently related with care and
truthfulness, though anonymous, in which the fascinator was as unlikely
as can be well imagined to excite, and the fascinatee to feel, the
emotion:--

"One evening, being seated in a room at Garrackpore, the window of which
was open, and the ceiling on one side sloped downwards towards the
window, my attention was attracted by a butterfly which chanced to fly
into the room. I observed its motions for a minute or two, when I
thought there was something that appeared unnatural in them, and the
insect began to dart to and fro in one di