SQUIRRELS 67 
When we fully understand the physiology of sleep, we 
may then be able to give a final and satisfactory ex- 
planation of these phenomena, but scarcely before. 
However, I venture to assert, that most, if not all of 
the phenomena of hypnotism, may find psychological 
realisation in the experiences of every individual human 
being, if he will but observe himself closely enough 
over a sufficiently long period of time. 
Turning now to feigning death. This subject did not 
escape that great master of close observation, Charles 
Darwin. He says, in his “Essay on Instinct” (now 
published as an Appendix to Dr Romanes’ work, 
“Mental Evolution in Animals”): 
“Insects are most notorious in this respect. We have amongst 
them a most perfect series, even with the same genus (as I have 
observed in Circulio and Chrysomela), from species, which feign 
only for a second, and sometimes imperfectly still moving their 
antenne (as with some Histers), and which will not feign a 
second time however much irritated, to other species, which, 
according to De Geer, may be cruelly roasted at a slow fire with- 
out the slightest movement; to others again which will long 
remain motionless, as much as twenty-three minutes, as I find 
with Chrysomela sparti.” 
Darwin speaks of such feigning as_ instinctive, 
Romanes (Joc. cit.) believes it instinctive, but thinks 
cataplexy may have been of much assistance in originat- 
ing and developing it. Both of these writers agree, 
however, that instinct has been perfected by natural 
selection. 
If this shamming death, or rather assuming the 
position of the dead, were really of benefit to the 
animals, such an explanation might be valid if natural 
selection be admitted at all. On the other hand, 
Darwin has shown that the position assumed by the 
shamming insects “in no instance was exactly the same” 
as that of the dead insects, and in many cases it was as 
unlike as could be. The question then arises in my 
