In the twilight the wife went to the cupboard and the huge turtle fell out, greatly startling her by its hideous appearance as it fell suddenly to the floor and began to move vigorously.
Copeland mentions a curious case in which a woman was attacked by a rattlesnake when in her sixth month of pregnancy, and gave birth to a child whose arm exhibited the shape and action of a snake, and involuntarily went through snake-like movements.

The face and mouth also markedly resembled the head of a snake.
The teeth were situated like a serpent's fangs.

The mere mention of a snake filled the child (a man of twenty-nine) with great horror and rage, "particularly in the snake season." Beale gives the history of a case of a child born with its left eye blackened as by a blow, whose mother was struck in a corresponding portion of the face eight hours before confinement.

There is on record an account of a young man of twenty-one suffering from congenital deformities attributed to the fact that his mother was frightened by a guinea-pig having been thrust into her face during pregnancy.

He also had congenital deformity of the right auricle.