Instinct.
As M. Moreau de Johnes was riding through a wood in Martinique some years since, his horse reared and exhibited the greatest degree of alarm, trembling in every limb with fear. On looking around to discover the cause of the animal’s terror, he observed a serpent, called fer de lance, standing erect in a bush of bamboo, and he heard it hiss several times.
He would have fired at it with his pistol, but his horse became quite unmanageable, and drew back as quickly as possible, keeping his eyes fixed on the snake. M. de Johnes, on looking around for some person to hold his horse so that he might destroy the viper, beheld a negro, streaming with blood, cutting with a blunt knife the flesh from a wound which the serpent had just inflicted.
The negro entreated M. de Johnes not to destroy it, as he wished to take the animal alive, to effect a cure on himself, according to a superstitious belief; and this M. de Johnes allowed him to do.