388 
MEANS OF ESCAPE FROM DANGER, 
the same kind is noticed in the Snake and Viper, 
though they also frequently glide away from obser¬ 
vation on the approach of man. The common Lizard 
contrives to prevent notice by remaining perfectly 
still when suspicious of intrusion, and will even 
keep a limb elevated from the ground some time, 
but when about to be seized, he removes with the 
rapidity of light. The Slug when disturbed and 
touched, contracts itself into a small compass and 
remains quiescent for some time. Several species 
of Spiders when handled or touched, contract their 
limbs under their bodies, and so allow themselves 
to be rolled about or dropped on the ground, as if 
inanimate substances. The English Centepede 
when touched, assumes the shape of a corkscrew, 
and thus rolls about with the earth that has been 
disturbed with it, as though it were a lifeless mass. 
It is remarkable that although nature has devised a 
variety of methods of this kind of escape from 
danger, yet occasionally there appears a great ex¬ 
ternal similarity in these contrivances as they are 
displayed by creatures of very different stations in 
the scale of creation and very different general en¬ 
dowments. While the Hedgehog and Armadillo 
contract themselves as above stated, how strange 
is the similarity of arrangement observed by the 
Millepede when touched. While the Lizard re¬ 
mains as devoid of motion as a stone, we trace the 
same contrivance in the common Blackworm as it 
stays its course across the parlour on hearing our 
footsteps. While the Slow-worm appears like a 
fragment of crooked stick, how curiously does the 
Earthworm simulate itself dead by appearing like 
a bit of bent and shrivelled twig as it is knocked 
by the spade in our gardens. 
The Squirrel is common with us, haunting prin¬ 
cipally tall trees in the more wooded parts, but is 
found likewise in plantations of fir trees before they 
