A singer is said to sing or hear sound like the sound of a wind instrument on a recorder/reeded instrument. The expression is in reference to the fakir’s display by which a snake is singing the wind, often a cobra. The imagery is of the snake’s rising up out of a basket next to which the entertainer is seated, swaying and playing his instrument, and displaying a splayed hood, which is normally both a defensive threat and prelude to strike, but refraining from further aggression–the subterfuge being that the snake has been charmed by the player’s lilting musical sounds–the reality being that the player’s swaying movements stimulate the hood What are the similes of snake charmers that can be used to lure a snake out of his skin? As to whether or not the simile extends so far as to include people-so-charmed’s also being of snakelike (reviled) nature, the passage seems to say it does not, but its being in the Keys (where cobras are not found), and also attended by copious drinking, suggests that it might.