Waterton describes handling a number of rattlesnakes--removing them from one apartment to the other--with his hands alone. They hissed and rattled when he meddled with them, but did not offer to bite him. Possibly this might have occurred during the time when they were sluggish, and their venom less deadly. The little peccary is a great enemy of the rattlesnake, as it is of all other serpents, and ordinary hogs destroy it easily without suffering from its bite; so that as man makes progress through the country and introduces these animals, rattlesnakes speedily disappear. Although the fascinating powers of the rattlesnake have been doubted, it seems probable that small birds and animals are frequently attracted when they catch sight of it coiled up on the ground below the branches on which they are posted--and, if not fascinated, fall through terror into its open jaws; or it may be that, influenced by the same overpowering impulse which induces human beings to rush into danger, the animal or bird, on beholding its deadly enemy, approaches it against its own will, and is drawn nearer and nearer, till it either falls into the deadly fangs, or comes near enough to be entrapped. Bates was one day in a forest with a little dog, which ran into a thicket and made a dead-set on a large snake whose head was raised above the herbage. The serpent reared its tail slightly in a horizontal position, and shook its terrible rattle. It was some minutes before he could get the dog away. This shows how slow the reptile is to make the fatal spring. On another occasion, he heard above his head, as it seemed, a pattering noise, when the wind, which had been blowing, lulling for a few moments, he discovered that it proceeded from the ground, and, turning his head, was startled by a sudden plunge, a heavy gliding motion betraying a large rattlesnake making off almost beneath his feet. THE FER DE LANCE. More dreaded than the jaguar or alligator is the jararaca--the native name for the terrible serpent, the fer de lance (Craspedo cephalus lanceolatus). The hideous creature, with brown colour, flat, triangular head, connected to its olive-tinted body by a thin neck, lies coiled up among a heap of leaves, from which it can scarcely be distinguished till the passer-by is close upon it; then suddenly it rears its head, which is armed with four long poisonous fangs, and, darting forward, strikes its victim with a deadly blow. Man, as well as all animals, dreads it-- except the hog, and its relative, the little peccary, which are indifferent to the effects of its poison.