Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/112

86 country hen under any circumstance make a sound which could be likened to a "hiss." Farther on we find the following sentence:—"The so-called feigning of death seems to me to have no relation to mimicry, but to an exaggeration of that stillness which so many animals adopt to avoid observation." I think, notwithstanding that, in some instances at least, the ruse is carried so far as to justify its being called a feigning (or mimicry) of death or sleep; otherwise, in the case of the Landrail, for instance, why should the bird close its eyes when engaged in this piece of deception? As to reptiles and batrachians feigning death, one of the latter (Bombinator igneus) almost goes farther than this. Its aim seems to be to simulate the unattractive appearance of a dead Toad or Frog which has been shrivelled and dried up by the heat of the sun's rays. I have seen and handled one in this state. It had just been taken from a roadside pond in Normandy, and at once went through this singular performance. Flattening and depressing its body in a wonderful manner, at the same time closing the eyes and throwing up the head and all four limbs into the air, it thus formed its whole body into a cup-like shape, of which the middle of the back was the deepest part.—