SENSIBILITY AND MIND. 87 



and other virtuous members of the articulate class. 

 Among these insects are many well known patterns 

 of virtue which the fable writers of old classic times 

 held up as examples for men. In the civil and social 

 arrangements of the ants, especially, we meet with 

 highly developed institutions which we may even yet 

 regard as instructive examples. But, unfortunately, 

 these highly civilized animals are not related to us." 



The above quotation, when considered in connec- 

 tion with the rest of the book, seems like mockery. 

 Hreckel, regretting that we have no relationship with 

 the ant and the bee, and other animals enjoying ad- 

 vanced systems of government, is in a certain sense 

 suggestively racy. 



Several well known beetles will mimic death as 

 artfully as an opossum; and certain butterflies will 

 assume the form and general appearance of leaves and 

 sticks to escape the covetous eyes of birds and other 

 enemies. Mimicry for deceptive purposes seems to be 

 inherited in part, though the trick is improved upon 

 by experience. The well known little striped squirrel, 

 the first time it happens to be pounced upon by a cat, 

 will feign death so completely as to deceive the captor, 

 and thus obtain an opportunity to escape with a few 

 harmless bites or scratches. Certain birds of the thrush 

 and sparrow families will, when driven from their nests, 

 feign to be hurt, and lamely hobble away, as if to pro- 

 voke pursuit ; and the artful creature will fly out of 

 sight as soon as the pursuer is well away from the 

 nest. In birds the cerebral masses gradually rise from 

 the similitude of reptilian brains in the ostrich to the 

 comparatively advanced cerebral lobes or hemispheres 

 of parrots, finches, and canaries ; and the cerebral sur- 

 faces exhibit well marked convolutions. The turkey 



