No . The charm has nothing to do with the medicine and everything to do with the beguiler waving a pungi , a reed tool carved out of a gourd , in the snake ’s facial expression . Snake do n’t have external ears and can comprehend little more than low - absolute frequency rumbles . But when they see something threaten , they move up up in a justificatory pose . “ The movement of the snake is completely key in on the guy wire act the toodley thing , ” tell Robert Drewes , chairman of the department of herpetology ( the study of amphibian and reptiles ) at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco . “ He sways , the snake sway . ”
Drewes studies how animals react to their own vociferation ; his specialisation is frogs . salientian have very right ear , which make good sense , since airborne sound is critical to their procreation : A croaking male person calls out to a female . Every call of every frog specie is distinct , and Drewes can walk blindfold into a patch of Kenya ’s Arabuko - Sokoke woods and key out 15 dissimilar metal money by listening to their call . distaff toad have internal spike that are attuned only to the call of their species . He wish a abstruse , copious pitch , and when he plays the sax , he prefer his alto and tenor to his treble . Although when he travel to Africa , he bring a soprano . “ I hate the damn thing , but it fits in my bag , ” he says . What do the frogs believe of his playing ? “ I ca n’t suffice that , ” he say . “ The guy rope who really sleep with this stuff and nonsense is Bernie Krause . ”
Krause is a player and “ soundscape ecologist ” who has recorded with Stevie Wonder , the Doors and George Harrison ( Krause worked on Harrison ’s record album Electronic Sound , which credits Harrison ’s cat for do on one side ) . “ Some musicians have played music to killer whale or dolphins , ” he read , “ and what happens is ab initio the critters that are being submit to this come out to be funny and want to know what it is , where it ’s come from . ” In 1985 he was part of a team that coaxed a fall back humpback whale out of the Sacramento River delta with field recordings of other humpback feeding .
Krause says that although fauna seem to respond to what we call euphony , how can we know what they think ? “ Birds bob their promontory to beats , bonobo play keyboard with Peter Gabriel , ” he says , “ but we ’re ascribe our attributes to brute . Show me animal appearing to enjoy euphony that are n’t captive , that are n’t look for something to alleviate the boredom . ” Krause sound out that we learned our music from the natural world , and in a few minor air hole of the globe , radical of human race still babble with nature rather than to it . The Kaluli in Papua New Guinea , he says , “ commix their vocalism in with the sounds of the woods , which is how we first learned polyphony”-singing with more than one voice . Snake charming also may have begun this way , singing and dance with the Hydra . But that was thou of years ago , before we knew snakes could n’t even pick up that toodley matter .
This post originally appear onPopular Science . Photo : John Downer / Getty Images .
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