IXSTINCT OF INSECTS. 555 



round the hive are effectually secured with propolis, the instinct directing 

 the collection of this substance lies dormant ; but transfer the bees to a 

 new hive which shall require a new luting, and it is instantly re-excited. But 

 these instances are superfluous. Every one knows that at the same mo- 

 ment of time the citizens of a hive are employed in the most varied and 

 opposite operations. Some are collecting pollen ; others are in search of 

 honey ; some busied at home in the first construction of the cells ; others 

 in giving them their last polish ; others in ventilating the hive ; others 

 again in feeding the young brood and the like. 



Now, how are we to account for this regularity of procedure — this un- 

 deviating accuracy with which the precise instinct wanted is excited — this 

 total absence of all confusion in the employment, by each inhabitant of the 

 hive, of that particular instinct out of so many which the good of the 

 community requires ? No thinking man ever witnesses the complexness 

 and yet regularity and efficiency of a great establishment, such as the Bank 

 of England or the Post-Office, without marvelling that even human reason 

 can put together, with so little friction and such sligjit deviations from 

 correctness, machines whose wheels are composed not of wood and iron, 

 luit of fickle mortals of a thousand different inclinations, powers, and 

 capacities. But if such establishments be surprising even with reason for 

 their prime mover, how much more so is a hive of bees whose proceedings 

 are guided by their instincts alone ! We can conceive that the sensations 

 of hunger experienced on awaking in the morning should excite into action 

 their instinct of gathering honey. But all are hungry ; yet all do not rusb 

 out in search of flowers. What sensation is it that detains a portion of the 

 hive at home, unmindful of the gnawings of an empty stomach, busied in 

 domestic arrangements, until the return of their roving companions ? Of 

 those that fly abroad, what conception can we form of the cause which, 

 while one set is gathering honey or pollen, leads another company to load 

 their legs with pellets of propolis ? Are we to say that the instinct of the 

 former is excited by one sensation, that of the latter by another ? But 

 why should one sensation predominate in one set of bees, while another 

 takes the lead in a second ? — or how is it that these different instincts 

 are called up precisely in the degree which the actual and changing state 

 of things in the hive requires? Of those which remain at home, what is 

 it that determines in one party the instinct of building cells to prevail ; in 

 another that of ventilating the hive ; in a third that of feeding the young 

 brood ? For my own part, I confess that the more I reflect on this 

 subject, and contrast the diversity of the means with the regularity and 

 uniformity of the end, the more 1 am lost in astonishment. The effects of 

 instinct seem even more wonderful than those of reason, in the same 

 manner as the consentaneous movements of a mighty and divided army, 

 which, though under the conmiand of twenty generals, and from the most 

 distant quarters, should meet at the assigned spot at the very hour fixed 

 upon, would be more surprising than the steam-moved operations, however 

 complex, of one of Boulton's mints. 



For the sake of distinctness and compression, I have confined myself in 

 considering the numbers of the instincts of individual insects to a single 

 species, the bee ; but if the history of other societies of these animals — 

 wasps, ants, &c., detailed in my former letters, — be duly weighed, it will 

 be seen that they furnish examples of the variety in question fully as strik- 

 ing. These corroborating proofs I shall leave to your own inference, and 



