344 THE STRUCTURE AND LIFE OF BIRDS chap. 



chance has come, has run away and escaped. 1 Mr. 

 Hudson in his Birds in a Village tells of a Reed 

 Bunting, which, in alarm for the safety of its young in 

 the nest, flew out on his approach, " but only to drop 

 to the ground, to beat the turf with its wings, then to 

 lie gasping for breath, then to flutter on a little further, 

 until at last it rose up and flew to a bush." A good 

 naturalist has just been describing to me very similar 

 behaviour on the part of a Whitethroat. The Opossum 

 and the Fox excel in the art of "shamming dead." 

 Among beetles and spiders the instinct is more com- 

 monly found than among mammals or birds. 



We must not put this behaviour down entirely to 

 good acting. The animal is actually afraid, often 

 even paralysed by fear. In time it recovers itself, and 

 seizes any opportunity of escape that offers. But the 

 natural stunning effects of fear have been turned to 

 account, and the temporary paralysis caused originally 

 by a violent shock to the nerves has by long ages of 

 natural selection been developed and improved so that 

 now we may look upon it as due to a valuable pro- 

 tective instinct, though helped in most, if not in all, 

 cases, by actual alarm. It is very remarkable that 

 this instinct should be found in creatures so remotely 

 connected as Spiders, Beetles, Birds, and Mammals, and 

 among birds in species belonging to widely separated 

 families, e.g. in the Reed Bunting and the Canadian 

 Ruffed Grouse. 



1 See Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 305. 



