INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 597 



is related by Mr. Wailes. He observed that all the bees, on their first 

 visit to the blossoms of a passion-flower {Passijiora carulea) on the wall 

 of his house, were for a considerable time puzzled by the numerous over- 

 wrapping rays of the nectary, and only after many trials, sometimes last- 

 ing two or three minutes, succeeded in finding the shortest way to the 

 honey at the bottom of the calyx ; but experience having taught them 

 this knowledge, they afterwards constantly proceeded at once to the most 

 direct mode of obtaining the honey ; so that he could always distinguish 

 bees that had been old visiters of the flowers from new ones, the last 

 being invariably at first long at a loss, while the former flew at once to 

 their object.^ 



My third fact is supplied by the same ants whose sagacious choice of 

 the vicinity of Reaumur's glass hives for their colony has been just related 

 to you. He tells us that of these ants, of which there were such swarms 

 on the outside of the hive, not a single one was ever perceived within ; 

 and infers that, as they are such lovers of honey, and there was no diffi- 

 culty in finding crevices to enter in at, they were kept without, solely from 

 fear of the consequences.^ Whence arose this fear ? We have no ground 

 for supposing ants endowed with any instinctive dread of bees ; and 

 Reaumur tells us, that when he happened to leave in his garden hives of 

 which the bees had died, the ants then never failed to enter them and 

 regale themselves with the honey. It seems reasonable, therefore, to 

 attribute it to experience. Some of the ants, no doubt, had tried to enter 

 the peopled as they did the empty hive, but had been punished for their 

 presumption ; and the dear-bought lesson was not lost on the rest of the 

 community. 



The fourth instance under this head which I shall mention is that sup- 

 plied by an Indian species of ant (Formica indefessa Sykes). A colony 

 of these voracious insects in Col. Sykes's house at Poona having been 

 circumvented in their repeated and successful attacks on the sweetmeats 

 always left on a sideboard, when it was removed to a distance from the 

 wall sufficient to prevent their reaching it climbed up the wall to the height 

 of about a foot above its level, and then let themselves fall so as to alisht 

 on the table, as Colonel Sykes himself witnessed with equal surprise and 

 admiration.^ Here it is obvious that it was only after experience had 

 shown the ants the inefficacy, in the altered position of the table, of their 

 former modes of attacking the sweetmeats, that they adopted this novel 

 and ingenious way of getting access to them, which, whether we refer it 

 to reason or a variation of instinct, is equally remarkable. 



Insects, in the third place, are able mutually to communicate and receive 

 information, which, in whatever way effected, would be impracticable if 

 they were devoid of reason. Under this head it is only necessary to refer 

 you to the endless facts in proof, furnished by almost every page of my 

 letters on the history of ants and of the hive-bee. I shall therefore but 

 detain you for a moment with an additional anecdote or two, especially 

 with one respecting the former tribe, which is valuable from the celebrity 

 of the relater. 



Dr. Franklin was of opinion that ants could communicate their ideas to 



» Entom. Mag. i. 525. « Reautn. v. 709. ^ Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. i. 105. 



