MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 413 
ant-lion before celebrated, will eat them only when alive. A different 
attitude is assumed by one of the tree-chafers (Hoplia pulverulenta), pro- 
bably 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 (Byrrhus), 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 per- 
finax, 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head is withdrawn somewhat within the thorax, much resembles a monk 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 simulation 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 tea 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, however, that I ever tried these experi- 
ments upon them myself, or that I recommend you to do the same. Lam 
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 (Serrifera), which, when alarmed, con- 
ceal their antenne under their body, place their legs close to it, and remain 
without motion even when transfixed by a pin. — Spiders also simulate 
death by folding up their legs, falling from their station, and remaining 
motionless ; and when in this situation 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 (Geometre), that 
will sometimes support themselves for whole hours, by means of their 
posterior legs, solely upon their anal extremity, forming an angle of various 
degrees with the branch on which they are standing, and looking like one 
of its twigs. Many concurring circumstances promote this deception. 
The body is kept stiff and immoveable with the separations of the seg- 
ments scarcely visible ; it terminates in a knob, the legs being applied 
close, so as to resemble the bud at the end of a twig; besides which it 
often exhibits intermediate tubercles which increase the resemblance. _ Its 
colour, too, is usually obscure, and similar to that of the bark of a tree. 
So that, doubtless, the sparrows and other birds are frequently deceived 
by this mancuvre, and thus baulked of their prey. Résel’s gardener, 
mistaking one of these caterpillars for a dead twig, started back in great 
1 De Geer, iv. 229. % Smellie, Phil, of Nat. Hist, i. 100. 
