172 EXPERIMENTS OX THE SUBJECT. 



tily mottled moth (Mamestra brassicx) was pointed 

 out to me, although scarcely distinguishable in 

 colour from the lichen-coloured stone on which it 

 slept. Stooping gently down, I passed a pin through 

 the thorax of the insect, untU the point came in con- 

 tact with the stone underneath. No motion, not 

 even the slightest tremour, evdnced its consciousness 

 of being thus transfixed ; although, in the higher 

 animals, the most excruciating torture must have 

 followed such a process. But when I attempted to 

 move it, the case was altered. Tlie feet were very 

 firmly attached to the surface of the stone, and 

 therefore, in lifting the moth from it, a slight degree 

 of violence was used. This awoke the slumberer, 

 and it instantly evinced by its motions the terror 

 and desire to escape, so accurately described by 

 Mr. Bird. Soon afterwards, I tried a similar experi- 

 ment on a moth of a different species {Calyptra 

 libatrix) . On this occasion, I carried the insect down 

 four flights of stairs after its being transfixed with a 

 pin, showed it in its quiescent or seemingly torpid 

 state to some of my friends, and took it back to the 

 apartment whence it had been removed, without its 

 evincing the slightest indication of pain, or even 

 attempting to flutter, until touched and purposely 

 awakened. "Without, therefore, arguing that insects 

 are incapable of bodily suffering, we may, from these 

 facts, safely infer that, contrasted with man, they are 



