INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 593 



the entrance of the hive with walls, arcades, casements, and bastions, built 

 of a mixture of wax and propolis, that these insidious marauders could 

 no longer intrude themselves. 



We can scarcely attribute these elaborate fortifications to reason sim- 

 ply ; for it appears that bees have recourse to a similar defensive expe- 

 dient when attacked even by other bees, and the means employed seem 

 too subtile and too well adapted to the end to be the result of this faculty 

 in a bee. 



But, on the other hand, if it be most probable that in this instance 

 instinct was chiefly concerned, if we impartially consider the facts, it seems 

 impossible to deny that reason had some share in the operations. Pure 

 instinct would have taught the bees to fortify themselves on the first 

 attack. If the occupants of a hive had been taken unawares by these 

 gigantic aggressors one night, on the second, at least, the entrance should 

 have been barricadoed. But it appears clear, from the statement of 

 Huber, that it was not until the hives had been repeatedly attacked and 

 robbed of nearly their whole stock of honey, that the bees betook them- 

 selves to the plan so successfully adopted for the security of their remain- 

 ing treasures ; so that reason, taught by experience, seems to have called 

 into action their dormant instinct.^ 



If it be thus probable that reason has some influence upon the actions 

 of insects which must be mainly regarded as instinctive, the existence of 

 this faculty is still more evident in numerous traits of their history where 

 instinct is little if at all concerned. An insect is taught by its instincts 

 the most unerring means to the attainment of certain ends ; but these 

 ends, as I have already had occasion more than once to remark, are lim- 

 ited in number, and such only as are called for by its wants in a state of 

 nature. We cannot reasonably suppose insects to be gifted with instincts 

 adapted for occasions that are never likely to happen. If, therefore, we 

 find them, in these extraordinary and improbable emergencies, still avail- 

 ing themselves of the means apparently best calculated for ensuring their 

 object ; and if in addition they seem in some cases to gain knowledge by 

 experience ; if they can communicate information to each other ; and if 

 they are endowed with memory, — it appears impossible to deny that they 

 are possessed of reason. I shall now produce facts in proof of each of 

 these positions ; not by any means all that might be adduced, but a few 

 of the most striking that occur to me. 



First, then, insects often, in cases not likely to be provided for by 

 instinct, adopt means evidently designed for effecting their object. 



A certain degree of warmth is necessary to hatch a hen's eggs, and we 

 give her little credit for reason in sitting upon them for this purpose. 

 But if any one had ever seen a hen make her nest in a heap of ferment- 

 ing dung, among the bark of a hot-bed, or in the vicinity of a baker's 

 oven, where, the heat being as well adapted as the stoves of the Egyp- 

 tians to bring her chickens into life, she left ofi' the habit of her race, and 

 saved herself the trouble of sitting upon them, — we should certainly 

 pronounce her a reasoning hen ; and if this hen had chanced to be that 

 Yery one figured and so elaborately described by Professor Fischer with 



> Ruber, ii. 289. 



50* 



