PuRNELL. — Oil True Instincts of Animals. 31 



pupae; and that the knowledge of hereditary enemies is not 

 wholly instinctive in ants is proved by the following experi- 

 ment, which we owe to Ford : He put young ants belonging 

 to three different species into a glass case with pupae of six 

 other species, all the species being naturally hostile to one 

 another. The young ants did not quarrel, but worked to- 

 gether to tend the pupiB. When the latter hatched out an 

 artificial colony was formed of a number of naturally hostile 

 species, all living together after the manner of the ' happy 

 families' of the showman." 



Amongst the hive-bees, the younger ones are usually left 

 at home with a small number of older bees to perform the in- 

 ternal work of the hive w^hile the remainder of the older bees 

 go out to collect honey and bee-bread. What deduction can 

 be drawn from this fact save that the younger bees are gradu- 

 ally trained to a knowledge of their duties as members of the 

 community ? Even bees of mature age seem to teach one 

 another. Huber saw a bee building upon the wax which had 

 already been put together by her coun-ades. But she did not 

 arrange it properly, or in a way to continue the design of her 

 predecessors, so that her building made an undesirable corner 

 with theirs. "Another bee," says Huber, "perceived it, pulled 

 down the bad work before our eyes, and gave it to the first in 

 the requisite order, so that it might exactly follow the original 

 direction." 



Of course, the fact that many so-called instinctive acts are 

 really the products of education and experience does not clash 

 with the view that animals may be, and probably are, born 

 into the world with a hereditary predisposition to certain 

 tribal habits which render instruction in the performance of 

 those habits easier and more effective than it would otherwise 

 be, just as some human families are endowed with musical 

 gifts, and the children in such families more readily acquire 

 the technical skill necessary for the efficient exercise of the 

 musical art than children of families destitute of such special 

 gifts. The mental like the bodily structure of any single 

 animal is the sum and outcome of all its progenitors' 

 faculties ; and, just as its body is better fitted to perform 

 certain acts than others, so its mental organization is better 

 fitted for certain mental operations than it is for others. 

 Body and mind are correlated, and work in unison. The 

 web-building spiders secrete web-building material in their 

 bodies, and possess highly-specialised organs enabling them 

 to produce the material in such manner and abundance that 

 it can be used in the construction of snares. And, as this 

 specialised anatomical structure has gradually been evolved 

 from simple beginnings, the mental facirlty required for the 

 construction of snares has been evolved with it. The spider 



