INSTINCT. 



19 



but not to leave room for objection, 1 shall 

 regard them as the result of one only: yet 

 the operations of polishing the interior of the 

 cells, and soldering their angles and orifices 

 with propolis, which are sometimes not under- 

 taken for weeks after the cells are built; and 

 the obscure but still more curious one of var- 

 nishing them with the yellow tinge observable 

 in old combs, seem clearly referable to at 

 least two distinct instincts. 



" In their out-of-door operations several dis- 

 tinct instincts are concerned. By one they are 

 led to extract honey from the nectaries of 

 flowers ; by another to collect pollen after a 

 process involving very complicated manipu- 

 lations, and requiring a singular apparatus of 

 brushes and baskets ; and that must surely be 

 considered a third which so remarkably and 

 beneficially restricts each gathering to the same 

 plant. It is clearly a distinct instinct which 

 inspires bees with such dread of rain, that 

 even if a cloud pass before the sun, they return 

 to the hive in the greatest haste. 



" Several distinct instincts, again, are called 

 into action in the important business of feeding 

 the young brood. One teaches them to swal- 

 low pollen, not to satisfy the calls of hunger, 

 but that it may undergo in their stomach an 

 elaboration fitting it for the food of the grubs ; 

 and another to regurgitate it when duly con- 

 cocted, and to administer it to their charge, 

 proportioning the supply to the a?e and con- 

 dition of the recipients. A third informs them 

 when the young grubs have attained their full 

 growth, and directs them to cover their cells 

 with a waxen lid, convex in the male cells, but 

 nearly flat in those of workers, and by a fourth, 

 as soon as the young bees have burst into day, 

 they are impelled to clean out the deserted 

 tenements and make them ready for new oc- 

 cupants. 



" Numerous as are the instincts already 

 mentioned, the list must yet include those 

 connected with that mysterious principle which 

 binds the working bees of a hive to their 

 queen : the singular imprisonment in which 

 they retain the young queens that are to lead 

 off a swarm, until their wings be sufficiently 

 expanded to enable them to fly the moment 

 they are at liberty, gradually paring away the 

 waxen wall that confines them to an extreme 

 thinness, and only suffering it to be broken 

 down at the precise moment required ; the 

 attention with which in these circumstances 

 they feed the imprisoned queen by frequently 

 putting honey on her proboscis, protruded from 

 a small orifice in the lid of her cell ; the 

 watchfulness with which, when at the period 

 of swarming more queens than one are re- 

 quired, they place a guard over the cells of 

 those undisclosed, to preserve them from the 

 jealous fury of their excluded rivals ; the 

 exquisite calculation with which they inva- 

 riably release the oldest queens the first from 

 their confinement ; the singular love of mo- 

 narchical dominion, by which, when two queens 

 in other circumstances are produced, they are 

 led to impel them to combat until one is de- 

 stroyed ; the ardent devotion which binds 



them to the fate and fortune of the survivor; 

 the distraction which they manifest at her 

 loss, and their resolute determination not to 

 accept of any stranger until an interval has 

 elapsed sufficiently long to allow of no chance 

 of the return of their rightful sovereign ; and 

 (to omit a further enumeration) the obedience 

 which in the utmost noise and confusion they 

 shew to her well-known hum. 



" I have now instanced at least thirty dis- 

 tinct instincts with which every individual of 

 the nurses amongst the working-bees is en- 

 dowed ; and if to the account be added their 

 care to carry from the hive the dead bodies of 

 any of the community ; their pertinacity in 

 their battles, in directing their sting at those 

 parts only of the bodies of their adversaries 

 which are penetrable by it; their annual autum- 

 nal murder of the drones, &c. Sec.- it is cer- 

 tain that this number might be very consider- 

 ably increased, perhaps doubled."* 



To these instincts, in the case of some species 

 of ants we shall certainly have to add those by 

 which they are guided in carrying on a regular 

 system of warfare, either with other hives of the 

 same species or with other species, in subjuga- 

 ting and bringing up as workers or slaves those 

 that they have subdued, and likewise in sub- 

 jecting to their dominion tribes of Aphides.f 



But all this becomes still more surprising, 

 because more at variance with the usual in- 

 stincts of animals, when we consider the power 

 of adapting their operations to changes in their 

 circumstances, which such associations of in- 

 sects possess. 



" It is," says Mr. Spence, " in the deviations 

 of the instincts of insects and their accommoda- 

 tion to circumstances, that the exquisiteness of 

 these faculties is most decidedly manifested. 

 The instincts of the larger animals seem capable 

 of but slight modification. They are either ex- 

 ercised in their full extent or not at all. A 

 bird, when its nest is pulled out of a bush, 

 though it should be laid uninjured close by, 

 never attempts to replace it in its situation ; it 

 contents itself with building another. But in- 

 sects in similar contingencies often exhibit the 

 most ingenious resources, their instincts surpri- 

 singly accommodating themselves to the new 

 circumstances in which they are placed, in a 

 manner more wonderful and incomprehensible 

 than the existence of the faculties themselves." 



This observation we support by various in- 

 stances taken from the history of different in- 

 sects ; but the most extraordinary are from the 

 societies of insects of which we now speak ; 

 and of these the following are only a specimen. 



" The combs of bees are always at an uniform 

 distance from each other, namely, about one- 

 third of an inch, which is just wide enough to 

 allow them to pass easily, and have access to 

 the young brood. On the approach of winter, 

 when their honey-cells are not sufficient in 

 number to contain all the stock, they elongate 

 them considerably, and thus increase their capa- 



* Introduction to Entomology, vol. ii. p. 498 

 et seq. 



f Introd. to Entomology, letter xvii. 



c 2 



