OPPIAN 



death, I am quite sure that the animal does not al- 

 gether lose consciousness. It is exceedingly difficult 

 to discover any evidence of life in the opossum ; but 

 when one withdraws a little way from the feigning 

 fox, and watches him very attentively, a slight open- 

 ing of the eye may be detected ; and, finally, when 

 left to himself, he does not recover and start up like 

 an animal that has been stunned, but slowly and 

 cautiously raises his head first, and only gets up when 

 his foes are at a safe distance. Yet I have seen 

 gauchos, who are very cruel to animals, practise the 

 most barbarous experiments on a captured fox without 

 being able to rouse it into exhibiting any sign of life. 

 This has greatly puzzled me, since, if death-feigning 

 is simply a cunning habit, the animal could not suffer 

 itself to be mutilated without wincing. I can only 

 believe that the fox, though not insensible, as its 

 behaviour on being left to itself appears to prove, 

 yet has its body thrown by extreme terror into that 

 benumbed condition which simulates death, and 

 during which it is unable to feel the tortures practised 

 on it." W. H. Hudson, The Naturalist in La Plata 

 (1903). 



3. Beer and Snakes : C. ii. 233 ff., H. ii. 289 if- 

 " The gauchos of the pampas give a reason for the 

 powerful smell of the male deer. . . . They say that 

 the effluvium of Cervus campestris is abhorrent to 

 snakes of all kinds . . . and even go so far as to 

 describe its effect as fatal to them ; according to this, 

 the smell is therefore a protection to the deer. In 

 places where venomous snakes are extremely abund- 

 ant, as in the Sierra district on the southern pampas 

 of Buenos Ayres, the gaucho frequently ties a strip 



