The History of Virginia, in Four Parts

by Robert Beverley

I thought this account of such a curiosity would be acceptable, and the rather because though I lived in a country where such things are said frequently to happen, yet I never could have any satisfactory account of a charm, though I have met with several persons who have pretended to have seen them. Some also pretend that those sort of snakes influence children, and even men and women, by their charms. But this that I have related of my own view, I aver, (for the satisfaction of the learned,) to be punctually true, without enlarging or wavering in any respect, upon the faith of a Christian.

In my youth I was a bear hunting in the woods above the inhabitants, and having straggled from my companions, I was entertained at my return, with the relation of a pleasant rencounter, between a dog and a rattle snake, about a squirrel. The snake had got the head and shoulders of the squirrel into his mouth, which being something too large for his throat, it took him up some time to moisten the fur of the squirrel with his spawl, to make it slip down. The dog took this advantage, seized the hinder parts of the squirrel, and tugged with all his might. The snake, on the other side, would not let go his hold for a long time, till at last, fearing he might be bruised by the dog's running away with him, he gave up his prey to the dog. The dog ate the squirrel, and felt no harm.

Another curiosity concerning this viper, which I never met with in print, I will also relate from my own observation:

Sometime after my observation of the charm, my waiting boy being sent abroad on an errand, also took upon himself to bring home a rattle snake in a noose. I cut off the head of this snake, leaving about an inch of the neck with it. This I laid upon the head of a tobacco hogshead, one Stephen Lankford, a carpenter, now alive, being with me. Now you must note that these snakes have but two teeth, by which they convey their poison; and they are placed in the upper jaw, pretty forward in the mouth, one on each side. These teeth are hollow and crooked like a cock's spur. They are also loose or springing in the mouth, and not fastened in the jaw bone as all other teeth are. The hollow has a vent, also, through by a small hole a little below the point of the tooth. These two teeth are kept lying down along the jaw, or shut like a spring knife, and don't shrink up as the talons of a cat or panther. They have also over them a loose thin film or skin of a flesh color, which rises over them when they are raised, which I take to be only at the will of the snake to do injury. This skin does not break by the rising of the tooth only, but keeps whole till the bite is given, and then is pierced by the tooth, by which the poison is let out. The head being laid upon the hogshead, I took two little twigs or splinters of sticks, and having turned the head upon its crown, opened the mouth, and lifted up the fang or springing tooth on one side several times, in doing of which I at last broke the skin. The head gave a sudden champ with its mouth, breaking from my sticks, in which I observed that the poison ran down in a lump like oil, round the root of the tooth. Then I turned the other side of the head, and resolved to be more careful to keep the mouth open on the like occasion, and observe more narrowly the consequence. For it is observed, that though the heads of snakes, terrapins and such like vermin, be cut off, yet the body will not die in a long time after—the general saying is, till the sun sets. After opening the mouth on the other side, and lifting up that fang also several times, he endeavored to give another bite or champ; but I kept his mouth open, and the tooth pierced the film and emitted a stream like one full of blood in blood letting, and cast some drops upon the sleeve of the carpenter's shirt, who had no waistcoat on. I advised him to pull off his shirt, but he would not, and received no harm; and tho' nothing could then be seen of it upon the shirt, yet in washing there appeared five green specks, which every washing appeared plainer and plainer, and lasted so long as the shirt did, which the carpenter told me was about three years after. The head we threw afterwards down upon the ground, and a sow came and eat it before our faces, and received no harm. Now I believe had this poison lighted upon any place of the carpenter's skin that was scratched or hurt, it might have poisoned him. I take the poison to rest in a small bag or receptacle, in the hollow at the root of these teeth; but I never had the opportunity afterwards to make a farther discovery of that.

I will likewise give you a story of the violent effects of this sort of poison, because I depend upon the truth of it, having it from an acquaintance of mine of good credit, one Colonel James Taylor, of Mattapony, still alive, he being with others in the woods a surveying. Just as they were standing to light their pipes, they found a rattle snake and cut off his head, and about three inches of the body. Then he, with a green stick which he had in his hand, about a foot and a half long, the bark being newly peeled off, urged and provoked the head, till it bit the stick in fury several times. Upon this the colonel observed small green streaks to rise up along the stick towards his hand. He threw the stick upon the ground, and in a quarter of hour the stick of its own accord split into several pieces, and fell asunder from end to end. This account I had from him again at the writing hereof.

Musquitoes are a sort of vermin of less danger, but much more troublesome, because more frequent. They are a long tailed gnat, such as are in all fens and low grounds in England, and I think have no other difference from them than the name. Neither are they in Virginia troubled with them anywhere but in their low grounds and marshes. These insects I believe are stronger, and continue longer there, by reason of the warm sun, than in England. Whoever is persecuted with them in his house, may get rid of them by this easy remedy: let him but set open his windows at sunset, and shut them again before the twilight be quite shut in. All the musquitoes in the room will go out at the windows, and leave the room clear.

Chinches are a sort of flat bug, which lurks in the bedsteads and bedding, and disturbs people's rest a nights. Every neat housewife contrives there, by several devices, to keep her beds clear of them. But the best way I ever heard, effectually to destroy them, is by a narrow search among the bedding early in the spring, before these vermin begin to nit and run about; for they lie snug all the winter, and are in the spring large and full of the winter's growth, having all their seed within them; and so they become a fair mark to find, and may with their whole breed be destroyed; they are the same as they have in London near the shipping.

Seed tick, and red worms are small insects, that annoy the people by day, as musquitoes and chinches do by night; but both these keep out of your way, if you keep out of theirs; for seed ticks are no where to be met with, but in the track of cattle, upon which the great ticks fatten, and fill their skins so full of blood, that they drop off, and wherever they happen to fall, they produce a kind of egg, which lies about a fortnight before the seedlings are hatched. These seedlings run in swarms up the next blade of grass that lies in their way; and then the first thing that brushes that blade of grass, gathers off most of these vermin, which stick like burs upon anything that touches them. They void their eggs at the mouth.

Red worms lie only in old dead trees, and rotten logs; and without sitting down upon such, a man never meets with them, nor at any other season, but only in the midst of summer. A little warm water immediately brings off both seed ticks and red worms, though they lie ever so thick upon any part of the body. But without some such remedy they will be troublesome; for they are so small that nothing will lay hold of them, but the point of a penknife, needle, or such like. But if nothing be done to remove them, the itching they occasion goes away after two days.

§ 81. Their winters are very short, and don't continue above three or four months, of which they have seldom thirty days of unpleasant weather, all the rest being blest with a clear air, and a bright sun. However, they have very hard frost sometimes, but it rarely lasts above three or four days, that is, till the wind change: for if it blow not between the north and north-west points, from the cold Appalachian mountains, they have no frost at all. But these frosts are attended with a serene sky, and are otherwise made delightful by the tameness of the wild fowl and other game, which by their incredible number, afford the pleasantest shooting in the world.