PASSIVE DEFENCE 



343 



Many stories have been related regarding the death-feigning 

 habit as exhibited by the Australian Dingo (Canis dingo), and it is 

 so well exemplified by the Opossums of America, that " to play 

 'possum " has become a proverb. Hudson (in The Naturalist in 

 La Plata) gives a description of the " death-simulating swoon " 

 into which a species of South American Fox (Canis azarcs) (fig. 

 501) falls if caught in a trap or worried by dogs, and expresses it 



Fig. 501. — A species of South American Fox [Ca7iis azaj-a] 



as his opinion that the animal does not altogether lose conscious- 

 ness, though, judging from the fact that it bears without flinching 

 various cruelties practised upon it by gauchos, he also states: — 

 " 1 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 upon it". Some Birds also feign death when hard 

 pressed, the Spotted Tinamou {Nothura mandosa) of the Pampas 

 being given as an example by the author just quoted. Lloyd 

 Morgan (in Habit and Instinct) quotes from Canon Atkinson 

 an amusing description of death-feigning by Land- Rails and 

 Water- Rails when caught. " A gentleman's dog catches a land- 

 rail and brings it to his master, unhurt, of course, as is the well- 

 trained dog's way, but to all appearance perfecriy dead. The dog 

 lays the bird down at his master's feet, and he turns it over with 



