sture varies greatly on the same day,
under the same atmospheric conditions and with the same subject,
though I cannot fathom the causes which shorten or lengthen it. How to
investigate the external influences, so numerous and often so slight,
which intervene in such a case; above all, how to scrutinize the
insect's private impressions: these are impenetrable mysteries. Let us
confine ourselves to recording the results.

Immobility continues fairly often for as long as fifty minutes; in
certain cases, even, it lasts more than an hour. The most frequent
length of time averages twenty minutes. If nothing disturbs the
Beetle, if I cover him with a glass shade, protecting him from the
Flies, who are importunate visitors in the hot weather prevailing at
the time of my experiment, the inertia is complete: not a quiver of
the tarsi, nor of the palpi, nor of the antennae. Here indeed is a
simulacrum of death, with all its inertia.

At last the apparently deceased comes back to life. The tarsi quiver,
those of the fore-legs first; the palpi and the antennae move slowly
to and fro: this is the prelude to the awakening. Now the legs begin
to kick. The insect bends slightly at its pinched waist; it buttresses
itself on its head and back; it turns over. There it goes, jogging
away, ready to become an apparent corpse once more if I renew my shock
tactics.

Let us repeat the experiment immediately. The newly resuscitated
Beetle is for a second time lying motionless on his back. He prolongs
his make-believe of death longer than he did at first. When he wakes
up, I renew the test a third, a fourth, a fifth time, with no
intervals of repose. The duration of the motionless condition
increases each time. To quote the figures, the five consecutive
experiments, from the first to the last, have continued respectively
for 17, 20, 25, 33 and 50 minutes. Starting with a quarter of an hour,
the attitude of death ends by lasting nearly a whole hour.

Without being constant, similar facts recur repeatedly in my
experiments, the duration, of course, varying. They tell us that as a
general rule the Scarites lengthens the period of his lifeless posture
the oftener the experiment is repeated. Is this a matter of practice,
or is it an increase of cunning employed in the hope of finally tiring
a too persistent enemy? It would be premature to draw conclusions: the
cross-examination of the insect has not yet been thorough enough.

Let us wait. Beside