ent ideation. In the lower
animals death-feigning is undoubtedly instinctive; yet the recognition
of danger, which sets in motion the phenomena of letisimulation, is
undoubtedly due, primarily, to intelligent ideation in a vast majority
of animals. Otherwise this earth would be a lifeless waste.--W.

There is a small fresh-water annelid which practises letisimulation when
approached by the giant water-beetle.[109] This annelid, when swimming,
is a slender, graceful little creature, about one-eighth of an inch
long, and as thick as a human hair; but when a water-beetle draws near,
it stops swimming, relaxes its body, and hangs in the water like a bit
of cotton thread. It has a twofold object in this: in the first place,
it hopes that its enemy will think it a piece of wood fibre, bleached
alga, or other non-edible substance; in the second place, if the beetle
be not deceived, it will nevertheless consider it dead and unfit for
food. I do not mean to say that this process of ratiocination really
occurs in the annelid; its intelligence goes no farther, probably, than
conscious determination. In the beetle, however, conscious determination
is merged into intelligent ideation, for its actions in the premises are
self-elective and selective.

[109] _Dyticus marginalis._ Vide Furneaux, _Life in Ponds and
Streams_, p. 325; foot-note for orthography.--W.

Letisimulation in this animal is by no means infrequent, for I have seen
it feign death repeatedly. Any one may observe this stratagem if he be
provided with a glass of clear water, a dyticus, and several of these
little worms. The annelid is able to distinguish the beetle when it is
several inches distant, and the change from an animated worm to a
seemingly lifeless thread is startling in its exceeding rapidity.

Even an anemone, a creature of very low organization indeed, has
acquired this habit. On one occasion, near St. John's, Newfoundland, I
noticed a beautiful anemone in a pool of sea-water. I reached down my
hand for it, when, presto! it shrivelled and shrunk like a flash into an
unsightly green lump, and appeared nothing more than a moss-covered
nodule of rock.

Very many grubs make use of this habit when they imagine themselves in
danger. For instance, the "fever worm," the larva of one of our common
moths,--the Isabella tiger-moth,--is a noted death-feigner, and will
"pretend dead" on the slightest provocation. Touch this grub with the
toe of your bo