232 MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



verse of this. They pack their legs, which are short and 

 flat, so close to their body, and lie so entirely without 

 motion when alarmed, that they look like a dead body, 

 or rather the dung of some small animal. Amongst the 

 weevil tribe, most of the species of Germar's genus Cry- 

 ptorynchus, including several modern genera or sub- 

 genera, when an entomological finger approaches them, 

 as I have often experienced to my great disappointment, 

 applying their rostrum and legs to the underside of their 

 trunk, fall from the station on which you hope to entrap 

 them, to the ground or amongst the grass; where, 

 lying without stirring a limb, they are scarcely to be 

 distinguished from the soil around them. Thus also, 

 doubtless, they often disappoint the birds as well as 

 the entomologist. A little timber-boring beetle (Ano- 

 bium pertinax\ (and others of the genus have the 

 same faculty,) which, when the head is withdrawn 

 somewhat within the thorax, much resembles a monk 

 with his hood, has long been famous for a most pertina- 

 cious simulation of death. All that has been related of 

 the heroic constancy of American savages, when taken 

 and tortured by their enemies, scarcely comes up to that 

 which these little creatures exhibit. You may maim 

 them, pull them limb from limb, roast them alive over a 

 slow-fire a , but you will not gain your end ; not a joint 

 will they move, nor show by the least symptom that they 

 suffer pain. Do not think, however, that I ever tried 

 these experiments upon them myself, or that I recom- 

 mend you to do the same. I am content to believe the 

 facts that I have here stated upon the concurrent testi- 

 mony of respectable witnesses, without feeling any temp- 

 a De Geer, iv. 229. 



