448 MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



gone before the Hedychrum, unrolling herself, and faithful to her instinct 

 and her object, though depriv^ed ot her wings, crept Op the wall directly 

 to the cell from whence she had been precipitated, and quietly placed 

 her egg in it against the side below the level of the pollen-paste, so as to 

 prevent the inason-bee from seeing it on her return.^ 



Other insects endeavor to protect themselves from danger by simulating 

 death. The common dung-chafer {Geotrupes stercorarius) when touched, 

 or in fear, sets out its legs as stiff as if they were made of iron-wire — which 

 is their posture when dead — and remaining perfectly motionless, thus de- 

 ceives the rooks which prey upon them, and like the ant-lion before cele- 

 brated will eat them only when alive. A different attitude is assumed by 

 one of the tree-chafers (^Hojjlia pulveridenta'), probably 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 (^Bi/rrhus), 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 jjertinax, 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 the same faculty), which, when the head is withdrawn somewhat within 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 simultation 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^, 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, how- 

 ever, that I ever tried these experiments 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 

 (Scrrifcra), which when alarmed conceal their antennae under their body, 

 place their legs close to it, and remain without motion even when trans- 

 fixed by a pin. — Spiders also simulate death by folding up their legs, 

 falling from their station, and remaining motionless ; and when in this situa- 

 tion they may be pierced and torn to pieces without their exhibiting the 

 slightest symptom of pain.^ 



There is a certain tribe of caterpillars called surveyors (^Geometrai), 

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



' Ena/cl. Method, x. 8. Lacordaire, Introd. h VEntom. ii. 4S8. 



* De Geer, iv. 229. 3 SmeUie, Phil, of Nat. Hist. i. 150. 



