266 LOCH C RERAN. 



our success, the impossibility of " proving a negative " in 

 such a case befriends us. A friend and neighbour assures 

 us of the suicide of his terrier at one time when in 

 distemper, the animal simply going off and drowning 

 itself, and we firmly believe that in an extremity of pain 

 and fear, an animal will destroy itself "if it has the 

 means and opportunity." One argument adduced 

 against this is that it pre-supposes a knowledge of death 

 on the part of the animal, and mankind, as a rule, have 

 come to act as if animals could not have any mental fear 

 or anxiety about death, because they could not foresee it 

 or know of it Now, this is a very simple way of cutting 

 the Gordian knot, and a Gordian knot it is ; indeed, it 

 leads to some of the greatest of psychological problems. 

 But, that an animal knows death, may be pre-supposed 

 from the fact that many of them will simulate it, and do 

 this with the most marvellous verisimilitude. Perhaps 

 the best-known cases are those of the landrail or corn- 

 craik and the rat, to choose two widely-separated classes 

 of animals j to which we would wish to add the crab, a 

 creature that will on all occasions simulate death 

 admirably, when it cannot see any possible means of 

 escape otherwise. Under these circumstances the 

 animals will permit themselves to be handled like 

 corpses, and we have known a rat almost succeed in 

 deceiving a whole household, where it lay on the dung- 

 hill as it was thrown from the trap, keeping up the 

 deception for hours, as it knew that it was watched. 

 At length one eye was slowly opened, and ere those 

 watching its movements could prevent it, the knowing 

 creature had escaped with a rush. A creature that could 

 thus imitate death so admirably, must perfectly well 

 understand that such a state must exist for it, equally as 



