THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 141 



bodied and vigorous, immediately becomes soft and repul- 

 sively flaccid. The aggressor, thinking he has only a dead 

 animal in his mouth, drops his prey in disgust. 



This beetle, having reached its final stage and acquired 

 its horny wing-covers, cannot collapse, and it therefore em- 

 ploys another stratagem. When we take a Dytiscus from 

 one of our marshes, it is scarcely laid hold of before we see 

 a white, milky, repulsively stinking fluid issue from all the 

 pores of its skin, which the most hungry animal could not 

 endure. 



As children, we have all been struck with the sight of 

 beetles, which, so soon as we touch them with our fingers, 

 feign death by becoming perfectly motionless, and which, 

 when they are left to themselves, gather their legs to- 

 gether, and very soon scamper off at full speed. Some of 

 them remain so absolutely motionless that nothing can 

 withdraw them from their determined dissimulation. The 

 borer or death-watch (Anobium] will allow itself to be 

 singed or drowned rather than fly, when once fear has made 

 it shrink. What I state has been confirmed by experiment. 

 De Geer and Dumeril relate that, having thoroughly fright- 

 ened several Coleoptera of this species, they allowed them- 

 selves to be burned without attempting to escape. 



Others, in order to evade their enemies, carry deception 

 still further. When young and feeble, they assume for the 

 purpose of deception a repulsive and ragged or foul-smell- 

 ing covering of spider threads or excrement, though at a 

 later period they die clad in a mantle of purple and gold. 



Such is the Lily Crioceris. Its humble larva, soft and 

 timorous, covers its back with its own fetid dejections, in 



