1912] Conotrachelus Nenuphar Herbst 393 
one more easily evoked; the second being given upon more 
vigorous stimulation. However, there seems to be considerable 
individual variation in this respect, some curculios assuming the 
second position more readily than the first. It was found 
possible to elicit the two types of response in the several individ- 
uals experimented on in this connection. 
Figure 1. Attitudes assumed in the death feint. 
Several specimens were starved to death, and others killed 
by a slow poisoning. All of these assumed a position very 
similar to that of the death feint indicated in fig. 1, B. The 
only difference to be noted was that in most cases, the tips of 
the tibiz were farther apart, the legs being held not quite so 
perpendicular to the ventral surface of the thorax. This 
simulation of the natural death attitude in the death feint is in 
accord with the_results of Kirby and Spence (9), who in the case 
of the dung-chafer, Geotrupes sterocarius found the same thing 
.to occur. While not true in Belostoma, yet it is very closely 
parallel to what the Severins (10) found in Nepa, where “‘it 
becomes at times impossible to distinguish with the eye alone, 
a death feigning specimen from one that is really dead.”’ How- 
ever, in the majority of forms which have been studied, as 
recorded by Darwin (2) and other workers, the death attitude 
is found to be quite distinct in character from that assumed in 
the death feint. 
