272 THE WONDERS OF INSTINCT 



needle in the fore-part, which the animal, shrunk into its 

 shell, still leaves exposed. There is no quiver of the 

 wounded tissues, no reaction against the brutality of the 

 needle. A corpse itself could not give fewer signs of 

 life. 



Here is something even more conclusive : chance occa- 

 sionally gives me Snails attacked by the Lampyris while 

 they are creeping along, the foot slowly crawling, the 

 tentacles swollen to their full extent. A few disordered 

 movements betray a brief excitement on the part of the 

 Mollusc and then everything ceases: the foot no longer 

 slugs; the front part loses its graceful swan-neck curve; 

 the tentacles become limp and give way under their own 

 weight, dangling feebly like a broken stick. This con- 

 dition persists. 



Is the Snail really dead ? Not at all, for I can resusci- 

 tate the seeming corpse at will. After two or three days 

 of that singular condition which is no longer life and 

 yet not death, I isolate the patient and, though this is not 

 really essential to success, I give him a douche which will 

 represent the shower so dear to the able-bodied Mollusc. 

 In about a couple of days, my prisoner, but lately injured 

 by the Glow-worm's treachery, is restored to his normal 

 state. He revives, in a manner; he recovers movement 

 and sensibility. He is affected by the stimulus of a 

 needle; he shifts his place, crawls, puts out his tentacles, 

 as though nothing unusual had occurred. The general 

 torpor, a sort of deep drunkenness, has vanished out- 

 right. The dead returns to life. What name shall we 

 give to that form of existence which, for a time, abolishes 



