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 Komanes' 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 

 antennae (a8 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 Clirysomela spartii." 



Darwin speaks of such feigning as instinctive. 

 Eomanes (loc. cit.) believes it instinctive, but thinks 

 cataplexy may have been of much assistance in originat- 

 ing and developing it. Poth 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 



TTW1VKRSITY 



