MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 413 



ant-lion before celebrated, will eat them only when alive. A different 

 attitude is assumed by one of the tree-chafers (Hoplia pulverulenta), pro- 

 bably with the same view. It sometimes elevates its posterior legs into 

 the air, so as to form a straight vertical line, at right angles with the upper 

 surface of its body . Another genus of insects of the same order, the pill- 

 beetles (Byrrhus), have recourse to a method the reverse 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 Cryptorynchus, including several modern 

 genera or subgenera, 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 (Anobium per- 

 tinax^ 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 head is withdrawn somewhat within the thorax, much resembles a monk 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 pertinacious 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 l , 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 1 ever tried these experi- 

 ments upon them myself, or that I recommend you to do the same. I am 

 content to believe the facts that I have here stated upon the concurrent 

 testimony of respectable witnesses, without feeling any temptation to put 

 the constancy of the poor insect again to the test. A similar apathy is 

 shown by some species of saw-flies (Serriferd), which, when alarmed, con- 

 ceal their antennae under their body, place their legs close to it, and remain 

 without motion even when transfixed by a pin. Spiders also simulate 

 death by folding up their legs, falling from their station, and remaining 

 motionless ; and when in this situation they may be pierced and torn to 

 pieces without their exhibiting the slightest symptom of pain. 2 



There is a certain tribe of caterpillars called surveyors (Geometrce], that 

 will sometimes support themselves for whole hours, by means of their 

 posterior legs, solely upon their anal extremity, forming an angle of various 

 degrees with the branch on which they are standing, and looking like one 

 of its twigs. Many concurring circumstances promote this deception. 

 The body is kept stiff and immoveable with the separations of the seg- 

 ments scarcely visible ; it terminates in a knob, the legs being applied 

 close, so as to resemble the bud at the end of a twig ; besides which it 

 often exhibits intermediate tubercles which increase the resemblance. Its 

 colour, too, is usually obscure, and similar to that of the bark of a tree. 

 So that, doubtless, the sparrows and other birds are frequently deceived 

 by this manoeuvre, and thus baulked of their prey. Rosel's gardener, 

 mistaking one of these caterpillars for a dead twig, started back in great 



* De Geer, iv. 229. 2 Smellie, Phil, of Nat. Hist i. 150. 



