306 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS. 



of shamming dead occurs in most if not all the classes of 

 the animal kingdom. The subject therefore demands from 

 us serious attention, because on the one hand, as previously 

 remarked, it is obvious that the idea of death and of its 

 conscious simulation would involve abstraction of a higher 

 order than we could readily ascribe to any animal, and on°the 

 other hand it is not very easy otherwise to explain the 

 facts. 



I shall ^ first of all quote what Couch says upon the sub- 

 ject, as he is the first author, so far as I am aware, who did 

 not at once take it for granted that animals consciously feign 

 death, and who also supplied a reasonable hypothesis to 

 account for the facts. He says : — 



" But a more probable explanation is, that the suddenness 

 of the encounter, at a time when the creature thought of no 

 such thing, had the effect of stupefying his senses, so that an 

 effort of escape was out of his power, and the appearance of 

 death was not the fictitious contrivance of cunning, but the 

 consequence of terror. And that this explanation is the true 

 one appears, among other proofs, from the conduct of a bolder 

 and more ferocious animal, the Wolf, under similar circum- 

 stances. If taken in a pitfall it is said that it is so subdued 

 by surprise, that a man may safely descend and bind and 

 lead it away or knock it on the head ; and it is also said that 

 when it has wandered into a country to which it is a stranger, 

 it loses much of its courage and may be assailed almost vvith 

 impunity."* 



" A similar action to that of the Fox has been observed 

 in a little animal to which it is not common to ascribe more 

 than an ordinary degree of cunning or confidence in its own 

 resources. In a bookcase of wainscot, impervious to light, 

 certain articles were kept more agreeable to the taste of 

 mice than books, and, at midday, when the doors were suddenly 

 opened, a mouse was seen on one of the shelves ; and so 

 rivetted was the little creature to the spot that it showed all 

 the signs of death, not even moving a limb when taken into 

 the hand. On another occasion, on opening a parlour-door, in 

 broad daylight, a mouse was seen fixed and motionless in the 

 middle of the room ; and, on advancing towards it, its appear- 

 ance in no way differed from that of a dead animal, excepting 

 that it had not fallen over on its side. Neither of these 



* Mag. Nat. Hist., New Ser., vol. ii, p. 12*. 



