THE NATURALIST.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1250, 13 February 1896, Page 13

THE NATURALIST.

PLAYING MUSIC TO SNAKES.

Professor Halford writes to The Argus :—■ I am peculiarly fortunate in having a man, Mr W, Davies, to procure me snakes. He has large experience of the habits of Australian reptiles, and is so thoroughly reliable that it is both a pleasure and a profit to work with him. Well, a week or so ago, I told him I wished to try the effect of music upon a tiger snake (Hoplocephahis curtus). He got me a large one out of my case, and holding it lightly just behind the head proceeded to play on a small mouth-organ which I had Lought. After keeping up the music for half an-hour the snake was as vicious as ever. The experiment failed. Some days after this I tried with another" large tiger snake 'and again failed. Not being satisfied I asked Mr Davies to get me a black snake or a copper-head. He procured me one of the latter, a very fine specimen, 3ft 9in in length. The name of this venomous serpent is Hophlocephalus superbus. Mr Davies seized the snake by the neck close to the bead, then twisted his powurful body and tail round his own forearm and arm, and began playing the mouth-organ close to the snake’s head. In about seven minutes a great change had come ov.tr the snake; the corked tongue was no longer incessantly protruded and retracted, and it was finally withdrawn from view. The serpent was now freed from the grasp of finger and thumb, and the music continuing for another live minutes, the reptile was placed as an immovable coil upon the table. The clapping of ban Is close to his head, jumping on the boardu ! :lo >r, Ac., produced no recognition ur sign of movement. He was then placed in the open hands and raised from the tabic and replaced. He remained in this state about 25 minutes, when he gradually crawled off the table, and was soon as furious as ever. On Saturday last, the 4th inst., I repeated the experiment on the same snake in the presence .of Mr Superintendent Sadlier and Mr Clayton, of the Town Hall. The results were exactly similar, and these gentlemen expressed their gratitude to me, Mr Davies, and my assistant, Mr Brice, for the interesting exhibition. To conclude, physiologically we should consider that the viorations excited by the mouth-organ produced similar vibrations of the central cells of the nervous sj-stem of the snake, which central cells were indifferent to all. other vibrations, to noise, which is not music, particularly. I thought of Orpheus,' of Professor Marshall Hull, and of Wordsworth’s Blind Fiddler of Oxford street.— ‘ The music stirs in him like wind through a tree.”