s, we need not imagine that it is possible to go on
like this until our patience is exhausted. Sooner or later, flurried
by my pestering, the Scarites refuses to sham dead. Scarcely is he
laid on his back after a fall, when he turns over and takes to his
heels, as though he judged a stratagem which succeeded so
indifferently to be henceforth useless.

If we were to stop here, it would certainly seem that the insect, a
cunning hoaxer, seeks, as a means of defence, to cheat those who
attack him. He counterfeits death; he repeats the process, becoming
more persistent in his fraud in proportion as the aggression is
repeated; he abandons his trickery when he deems it futile. But
hitherto we have subjected him only to a friendly
examination-in-chief. The time has come to put a string of searching
questions and to trick the trickster if there be really any deception.

The Beetle under experiment is lying on the table. He feels beneath
him a hard body which gives him no chance of digging. As he cannot
hope to take refuge underground, an easy task for his nimble and
vigorous tools, the Scarites lies low in his death-like pose, keeping
it up, if need be, for an hour. If he were reclining on the sand, the
loose soil with which he is so familiar, would he not regain his
activity more rapidly, would he not at least betray by a few twitches
his desire to escape into the basement?

I was expecting to see him do so; and I was mistaken. Whether I place
him on wood, glass, sand or garden mould, the Beetle in no way
modifies his tactics. On a surface readily excavated he continues his
immobility as long as on an unassailable surface.

This indifference to the nature of the support half opens the door to
doubt; what follows opens it wide. The patient is on the table before
me and I watch him closely. With his gleaming eyes, overshadowed by
his antennae, he also sees me; he watches me; he observes me, if I may
so express myself. What can be the visual impression of the insect
when face to face with that monstrosity, man? How does the pigmy
measure the enormous monument that is the human body? Seen from the
depths of the infinitely little, the immense perhaps is nothing.

We will not go so far as that; we will admit that the insect watches
me, recognizes me as his persecutor. So long as I am here, he will
suspect me and refuse to budge. If he does decide to do so, it will be
after he has exhausted my patience. Let us therefore move away