The Glow- Worm and Other Beetles 



with his paw and his muzzle, sniffed at his 

 face: 



" He smells already," he said and, with- 

 out more ado, turned away. 



That Bear was a simpleton. 



The bird would not be duped by this 

 clumsy stratagem. In those happy days 

 when the discovery of a nest marked a red- 

 letter day, I never saw my Sparrows or 

 Greenfinches refuse a Locust because he was 

 not moving, or a Fly because she was dead. 

 Any mouthful that does not kick is eagerly 

 accepted, provided that it be fresh and pleas- 

 ant to the taste. 



If the insect, therefore, relies on the ap- 

 pearance of death, it would seem to me to be 

 very badly inspired. More wary than the 

 Bear in the fable, the bird, with its per- 

 spicacious eye, will recognize the fraud in a 

 moment and proceed to business. Besides, 

 had the object really been a corpse, but still 

 fresh, it would none the less have gobbled 

 it up. 



More insistent doubts occur to my mind 

 when I consider the serious consequences to 

 which the insect's artfulness might lead. It 

 shams dead, says the popular idiom, which 

 recks little of weighing the value of its term; 

 it simulates death, scientific language repeats, 

 360 



