that of the insect. Silence, darkness and tranquillity
prolong it. Its duration varies greatly in different species and
appears to increase with corpulence.

Among ourselves, who are very unequal subjects for induced sleep, the
hypnotist is obliged to pick and choose. He succeeds with one and not
with another. Similarly, among the insects, a selection is necessary,
for they do not all of them, by a long way, respond to the
experimenter's attempts. My best subjects have been the Giant Scarites
and the Cloudy Buprestis; but how many others have resisted quite
indomitably, or remained motionless for only a few seconds!

The insect's return to the active state presents certain peculiarities
which are well worthy of attention. The key to the problem lies here.
Let us return for a moment to the patients who have been subjected to
the ordeal of ether. These are really hypnotized. They do not remain
motionless by way of a ruse, there is no doubt upon that point; they
are actually on the threshold of death; and, if I did not take them in
good time out of the flask in which a few drops of ether have been
evaporated, they would never recover from the torpor whose last stage
is death.

Now what symptoms herald their return to activity? We know the
symptoms: the tarsi tremble, the palpi quiver, the antennae wave to
and fro. A man emerging from a deep sleep stretches his limbs, yawns
and rubs his eyes. The insect awaking from the etheric sleep likewise
has its own fashion of marking its recovery of consciousness: it
flutters its tiny digits and the more mobile of its organs.

Let us now consider an insect which, upset by a shock, perturbed by
some sort of excitement, is believed to be shamming dead, lying on its
back. The return to activity is announced exactly in the same fashion
and in the same order as after the stupefying effect of ether. First
the tarsi quiver; then the palpi and antennae wave feebly to and fro.

If the creature were really shamming, what need would it have of these
minute preliminaries to the awakening? Once the danger has
disappeared, or is deemed to have done so, why does the insect not
swiftly get upon its feet, to make off as quickly as possible, instead
of dallying with untimely pretences? I am quite sure that, once the
Bear was gone, the comrade who had shammed dead under the animal's
nose did not think of wasting time in stretching himself or rubbing
his eyes. He jumped up at once and took to his he