STUDY ON THE DEATH-FEIGNING OF BELOSTOMA 39 



acute consciousness of the situation. It involves a more or 

 less deliberate intention to profit by the deception, yet at the 

 same time it is probably not a result of conscious reflection. 

 There can be little doubt that a fox which slowly opens its eyes 

 and warily looks around is acting with an intelligent appreciation 

 of his predicament, but it is not to be inferred that he could have 

 reasoned out his course of action did not an innate proclivity 

 in that direction form a part of his instinctive make-up." 



While it is possible that among the higher animals which 

 sometimes feign death, there may be an attempt to deceive 

 their enemies, it is probable that among the lower animals there 

 is no room for such a supposition. The death feint in the Arthro- 

 pods is simply a non-intelligent instinctive act. Fabre (6, pp. 

 17-18), in his experiments with a Carabid beetle, determined 

 that his presence had no effect upon the duration of the death 

 feint. " Elle affirme, de fajon expresse, que I'attitude mor- 

 tuaire n'est pas une supercherie de I'insecte en danger. Ici 

 rien n'intimide 1 'animal. Autour de liu tout est silence, isole- 

 ment, repose. S'il persiste dans son immobilite, ce ne saurait 

 etre maintenant pour duper un ennemi. A n'en pas douter, 

 autre chose est en jeu." 



Herrera,^ believing as other naturalists that the simulation 

 of death is a voluntary act, endeavored to ascertain if the 

 animal possessed a notion of time, or knew the duration of the 

 time of its feint. From his work on a small insect, Thaptor 

 oblongus, he concludes that the duration of the death feint does 

 not depend upon external conditions, but upon the volition of 

 the animal. 



Holmes (12) and Robertson (23) have shown that the death 

 feint of some insects and spiders is not entirely dependent on 

 the brain. It is evident from our work that external conditions 

 do play an important role in the duration of the death feint. 



IX. SUMMARY. 



The principal points that we have attempted to bring out in 

 this paper are: 



I. Belostoma flumineum assumes two characteristic death- 

 feigning attitudes, both of which are quite different from those 



* Memorias de la Sociedad cientifica Antonia Alzato, Mexico, 3-4 (1892). Paper 

 not accessible; translated from Mancini's (18) paper. 



