INTRODUCTION. 



31 



stupid. They are so truly the property ot the species, that all its individuals perform 

 ■lem in the same way, without any improvement. 



Thus the working bees have always constructed very ingenious edifices, agreeably to 

 the rules of the highest geometry, and destined to lodge and nourish a posterity not 

 even their own. The wasps and the solitary bees also form very complicated nests, in 

 which to deposit their eggs. From this egg issues a grub, which has never seen its 

 parent, which is ignorant of the structure of the prison in which it is confined, but 

 which, once metamorphosed, constructs another precisely similar. 



In order to have a clear idea of instinct, it is necessary to admit that these animals 

 have innate and perpetual images or sensations in the sensorium, which induce them to 

 act as ordinary and accidental sensations commonly do. It is a sort of dream or vision 

 that ever haunts them, and may be considered, in all that relates to instinct, as a 

 kind of somnambulism. 



Instinct has been granted to animals as a supplement for intelligence, to concur with 

 it, and with force and fecundity, to the preservation, in a proper degree, of each species. 



There is no visible mark of instinct in the conformation of the animal ; but intelli- 

 gence, so far as has been observed, is in constant proportion to the relative size of the 

 brain, and particularly of its hemispheres.* 



OF METHOD, AS APPLIED TO TnE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



After what we have said respecting methods in general, there remains to ascertain 

 which are the most influential characters of animals, that should serve as the basis of 

 their primary divisions. It is evident they should be those which are drawn from the 

 animal functions ; that is to say, from the sensations and movements ; for not only do 

 both these make the being an animal, but they establish, in a manner, its degree of 

 animality. 



Observation confirms this position, by showing that their degrees of developement 

 and complication accord with those of the organs of the vegetative functions. 



The heart and the organs of the circulation form a kind of centre for the vege- 

 tative functions, as the brain and trunk of the nervous system do for the animal 



• One of the most curious phenomena of instinct is the transmission 

 of laitUled habits by generation, as in the instance of high-bred 

 pointer and tetter dog*, often requiring no training to 6t thcin for 

 their particular modes of indicating game. Propensities arc similarly 

 <iry in the human species ; but innate kuowlcdgc, as a substi- 

 tute for individually acquired experience, is peculiar to brutes, which, 

 for the most part, arc thrown upon their own resources, before they 

 have had time or opportunities to gain the necessary information to 

 serve as a guide for the regulation of their conduct. All the higher aui. 

 nmis, except the human species, appear to recognize their natural foes 

 intuitively, to know even where their hidden weapons lie, also where 

 they (and Likewise themselves) arc most vulnerable, and they endea- 

 vour to use their own peculiar weapons before these are developed. If 

 Incapable of resistance, they commonly have recourse to stratagem; 

 thus a brood of newly-hutched partridges will instantly COWM motion* 

 less at sight of an object of distrust, the intent of which must be, that 

 the close similarity of their colour to that of the surface should cause 

 them to be overlooked. Predatory annuals, again, which immolate 

 * capable of dangerous resistance, instinctively endeavour always 

 to attack a vital part, so aa to effect their purpose speedily, ami with 

 lcaat hacard to themselves ; but those which prey on feeble and de 

 *s animals attack Indiscriminately. Many astonishing mani- 

 festations of the instinctive faculty occur respecting the manner in 

 » I the food is ohtalned ; and in the ant and some rod< Dl on olrupcds, 

 whl i it re up grain, the embryo of every seed is destroyed, to pre- 

 Kent germination. 



The seasonal migrative impulse which recurs in sonic animals it 

 among the most incomprehensible of instinctive phenomcua, as it is 



shown to be, in various CASCS, Independent of t I Ol temperature ; 



though the latter, In particular, exercises some iuilueucc uu its de- 

 velopement, as does also the Stale of the sexual organs in spring. The 

 guiding principle of migration is equally mysterious,— that which 

 enables a bird of passage to return perlodli ally to its former haunts, 

 to the same locality (both in winter and summer) , which it had pre- 

 vtously occupied ; and the young also to the place of their DSl 

 This principle is farther evinced in the reran 

 accustomed place of abode from Indefinite distances, and by asm 

 and more direct route than that by which they had been removed. It 

 appears, Like* : Ullfcsted In somnambulism, snl. , 



• her MTct tlOttS ol the human body ; but the » 

 instincts are those which are chiefly cognisable in civilised man. 

 kind. 



One curious fact connected with the migrative propensity is, that 

 the same species Is sometimes permanently resident in one locality, 

 and migratory in (mother. Thai the robin, Srhl sr» in 



. IsAVOS «■• nnaiiy in the autumn \ whlCS sruaid teeia to indi- 

 cate that the erratic habit may have original 

 necessity, and in course of tunc h* 

 siblc, independently ol sx terns! can lataMtij hosr- 



cvi r, may COSUnoulj be distinguished uTOSfl others of the same i 

 by their superior iiructural powers u( losXHnotiOflU- 



