CHAPTER V 



BEHAVIOUR, INSTINCTIVE AND INTELLIGENT 



In the preceding chapter our consideration of the sense- 

 organs of insects and the reactions associated with their 

 working has led to comparisons between the sensations and 

 responses of insects and those of back-boned creatures, 

 including our own race. The behaviour of insects — 

 especially of those groups which exhibit a highly developed 

 family or social life — has been repeatedly used by earnest 

 teachers of mankind to stimulate their fellows to more 

 strenuous habits of life and work. " Go to the ant, thou 

 sluggard ; consider her ways and be wise " was the call of the 

 Hebrew seeker after wisdom to the men of his day, and such 

 calls have been echoed since through the ages. Survivors 

 from the nineteenth century remember how in their youth 

 they were ** exhorted to virtue " in the verse of Isaac 

 Watts :— 



" How doth the Httle busy bee 

 Improve each shining hour, 

 And gather honey all the day 

 From every opening flower 1 " 



But some years before that century closed F. Anstey had 

 suggested that the " modern child " of the period might be 

 expected to reply to such exhortation in this wise : — 



" How doth the little bee do this ? 

 Why, by an instinct blind. 

 Cease then to praise good works of such 

 An automatic kind." 



We will return to the specialised activities of ants and 

 bees in a later chapter ; the points of view contrasted in 

 the two verses just quoted are, however, among those 



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