344 ANIMAL DEFENCES 



his toe. It simply moves as it is moved, all its limbs limp. Con- 

 tinuing to regard it, however, the man sees an eye opened, and he 

 takes it up. The * artful dodger ' is quite dead again in a moment, 

 head hanging and dangling, limbs loose, and no sign of life any- 

 where. It is put in its captor's pocket, and, not liking the confine- 

 ment, begins to struggle. When taken out it is just as lifeless as 

 before; but being put down on the ground and left undisturbed the 

 gentleman having stepped to one side, but continuing to watch 

 it lifts its head in a minute or so, and, seeing all apparently serene, 

 it starts up on a sudden and * cuts its lucky ' with singular speed." 



" In the case of the water- rail which came under my own 

 observation, it was picked up on a snowy day by the most intimate 

 of the friends of my youth and early manhood. He assumed that 

 it was dazed with cold, and perhaps what we Yorkshire folks call 

 'hungered' as well. So he brought it home with him, and laid 

 it on a footstool in front of the dining-room fire. Five minutes 

 passed ten were gone and still the lifeless bird lay as it was 

 put down, dead to all seeming; only not stiff, as it ought to have 

 been if dead of cold as well as hunger. A few minutes later, my 

 friend, who was very still, but yet with an eye to the bird, saw 

 it not lift its head, like the land-rail, and take a view, but start 

 off in a moment with no previous intimation of its purpose, and 

 begin to career about the room with incredible rapidity. It never 

 attempted to fly. Any other captive bird in its position would 

 have made for the window at once, and beaten itself half to pieces 

 against the glass. Not so the rail. With it, in its helter-skelter 

 and most erratic course, it was anywhere rather than the' window 

 or the fire. Round the room, across the room, under the sofa, 

 under the table, from corner to corner, steering itself perfectly, 

 notwithstanding legs of chairs, legs of tables, the sofa-feet, foot- 

 stools, or what not, on and on it careered ; and it was not without 

 some patience and many attempts that it was eventually secured." 



There are also some Reptiles which feign death when attacked, 

 and a Lizard which illustrates this habit is described by Darwin 

 (in A Naturalist's Voyage), when speaking of the fauna of Bahia 

 Blanca on the Argentine coast: " Of Lizards there were many 

 kinds, but only one (Proctotretus multimaculatus] remarkable from 

 its habits. It lives on the bare sand near the sea-coast, and from 

 its mottled colour, the brownish scales being speckled with white, 

 yellowish red, and dirty blue, can hardly be distinguished from 



