FEIGNING DEATH. 307 



creatures made an effort to escape, and were taken up at 

 leisure ; nor had they received any hurt or injury, for they 

 soon displayed every mark of being alive and well. 



" It would be as easy to catch a Weasel asleep as off its 

 guard ; but it seems still more unlikely that, in the disguise 

 of death it should suffer itself to be cuffed, pawed, and 

 handled with impunity by a cat : yet it so happened that, 

 while Puss was reclining at ease, seemingly inattentive to all 

 the world around her, a Weasel came unexpectedly up, was 

 seized in a moment, and dangling from her teeth as if dead, 

 was thus carried to the house at no great distance. The door 

 being shut, Puss, deceived by its apparent lifelessness, laid 

 her victim on the step, while she gave her usual mewing cry 

 as for admittance. But by this time the active little creature 

 had recovered its recollection, and in a moment struck its 

 teeth into its enemy's nose. It is probable that, besides the 

 sudden surprise of the capture, the firm grasp which the cat 

 had of it round the body had prevented any earlier effort at 

 resistance from the Weasel ; for in this manner our smaller 

 quadrupeds which bite so fiercely may be held without 

 injury ; but the Weasel can hardly be supposed to have been 

 practising a deception all the while it was in the Cat's 

 mouth."* 



This h}^othesis would require to be substantiated by 

 special experiments before it would merit unreserved accept- 

 ance. These experiments would consist in allowing an animal, 

 immediately that it is observed shamming dead, to regain its 

 liberty, and to watch it without the animal knowing that it is 

 being observed. If it were then to continue for any consider- 

 able time motionless, the fact would tend to prove Couch's 

 hypothesis, whereas if it were quickly to recover, the inference 

 would lie in tlie direction of supposing the passiveness in the 

 presence of danger due to conscious purpose. I once thought 

 that I had myself the opportunity of trying tliis experiment ; 

 for having caught a wild squirrel in a cloth I observed that the 

 animal immediately became motionless. Turning it out upon 

 the ground and concealing myself from its view, I waited a 

 long time for it to recover ; but as it did not do so I went up to 

 examine it, and found it was not shamming, but really dead. 

 This incident I mention here, because it has an important 

 bearing on Couch's hypothesis ; it shows that the terror of a 



* Illustrations of Instinct, p. 125. 



u 2 



