“Any element or phenomenon in nature which is believed to possess a personal existence is endowed with a personality analogous to that of the animal whose operations most resemble its manifestations; e.g., lightning is given the form of a serpent, with or without the arrow-pointed tongue because its course through the sky is serpentine, its stroke instantaneous and destructive; yet it is named Wi-lo-lo-a-ne, a word derived not from the name of the serpent itself but from its most obvious trait, its gliding zig-zag motion. For this reason the serpent is supposed to be more nearly related to lightning than to man, but more nearly related to man than is lightning, because mortal and destructive.”—CUSHING, _Zuñi Fetiches, Second Annual Report_, Bureau of Ethnology and Anthropology, p. 9. The writer is indebted to a California friend for the following examples of hypnosis by rattlesnakes. “When I was a young girl visiting on a ranch in Napa County, California, I had the following interesting experience, which was unusual, in fact, unique. Napa County is infested with rattlesnakes; subconsciously we were never unaware of the danger and, as children, killed many of them. The country was a particularly well-favored spot for the raising of turkeys and as we often drove them into the stubble fields where the grasshoppers were to be found we became accustomed to the ways of these very sensitive domesticated birds. Their usual mournful whine would give way to an alert cry if a hawk or buzzard began to circle over us in the sky and we also noticed a very peculiar and distinct cry when a rattlesnake was seen by them: _Brrrup_, _Brrrup_, in a very high piercing key. “One day we were in the house when we heard this peculiar snake cry from the throats of about one hundred young birds. They were only about four weeks old and were in a small, well-protected snake-proof enclosure. Two of us ran out to see what could have happened, and this is what we saw—a rattlesnake the size of a lead pencil coiled in one corner and surrounding him all the turkeys in a semi-circle with heads stretched to the fullest, slowly but surely hypnotized and moving towards the swaying head of the snake. So absorbed were they that neither the snake nor the turkeys heard us. We watched the performance long enough to be sure of what was happening and then, with the never forgotten stick, killed the snake. The little turkeys, released from the spell, shook themselves, blinked, yawned and stood around confused until their little brains registered safety. “I was talking with a friend of mine about Lower California one day and he was telling me of the fascinating beauty of it. ‘However,’ he said, ‘it has one great drawback and that is the size and number of the rattlesnakes.’ He said that it was not at all unusual to see them five feet long with bodies the size of a quart bottle and heads that would cover the palm of his hand.