1881.] " Nuces Zoologies ” and their u Cracking .” 
39i 
upon an uncharged body. In each positive electricity is 
induced upon one surface, negative upon the opposite. This 
induced energy, being added to the pre-existing charge, re- 
sults in a reduction of this charge upon one surface, and its 
augmentation upon the other. The effeCt seems to be a 
disturbance by the positive body of the negative charge of 
the other, and an attraction of an excess of it to the adjacent 
surface ; and a reverse attraction of the positive charge by 
the negative body. But the real effeCt is unquestionably that 
above described, each body producing an inductive effeCt 
upon the other without regard to its charge, and this effeCt 
being added to or deducted from the charge. 
(To be continued.) 
II. A HANDFUL OF “ NUCES ZOOLOGKLE,” 
AND THEIR “ CRACKING.”* 
By J. W. Slater. 
'^^rHO has not seen, or at least heard of, animals, when 
ywr 9 in some position of real or imaginary danger, sham- 
ming death ? A fox, after being shot at and 
wounded, has been known to lie motionless and inert, and to 
give no sign of life even if handled and lifted up. But if 
left unnoticed for a time he has been found to have disap- 
peared. The pretended death of the opossum has become 
proverbial. A dung-beetle, if surprised away from his burrow, 
stretches out his legs in the stiff and ungainly posture which 
his race take when dead. Numbers of other Coleoptera, if 
startled by the approach of a hand, by a passing shadow (as 
of a bird flying over), fold in their legs close to their body, 
and remain motionless, or perhaps drop from the spray, tree- 
trunk, or wall on which they may have been sitting, and 
may easily be mistaken (e.g., Byrrhus pilularius ) for a little 
lump of dirt. Such instances might be multiplied to an in- 
definite extent were there any question about the faCts them- 
selves. But the difficulty lies elsewhere. Why do such 
* Trance and Trancoidal States in the Lower Animals. By G. M. Beard 
A.M., M.D. New York ; W. L. Hyde and Go. 
