THE rNSTINCT OF INSECTS. 17 



usual cost of which is one <h)nar [wr leus, is all that is usually iv(iuirtMl. 

 J r is a comjuou njistakc to suppose that insects caimot be studied and 

 <;Iassitied without the use of a complex and costly microscope. Such 

 iiistruinents are usefid'only to examine excessively minute or transpa- 

 rent objects, and though sometimes indispensable to the professional 

 entomologist, they are rarely used in the ordinary study of insects. 



THE INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



Instinct is that faculty by which animals are enabled to discover their 

 food, construct their nests, and provide for their young, and to perform 

 these oi»erations without having had any previous education or experi- 

 en(;e. .Many of the manifestations of this faculty are truly wonderful 

 and unaccountable. Such jire the mathematically accurate construction 

 of the cells of the honeycomb ; the curious economy of the ants ami 

 bees ; and the i>rovisions which many kinds of insects make for the fu- 

 ture subsistence of their young, even in advance of their existence. 



Instinct is often s]>oken of as an imperfect or partially developed rea- 

 son, l»ut its relation to tlnit faculty can be, at most, only tliat of a very 

 remote anylogy. Jt differs from reason in its invariableness and its al- 

 most absolute infidlibility, but most essentially in its independency of 

 previous knowledge and ex[)erience. Keason acts only by virtue of wliat 

 is already known, and man, who vastly excells all other animals in his 

 )eas(Miing powers, approaches perfection in any complex woik only by 

 long study and piactice ; the hom^y-bee, on the contrary, constructs its 

 lirst cell with such mathenuitical accuracy that it cannot be improved 

 by any subse<punit experience. 



Some of the higher animals, such as the horse and the dog, give proof 

 of the i)ossession of a reasoning facultj' similar to our own, and inferior 

 only in degree. But whilst the manifestations of reason are fainter as 

 we descend in the animal scale, instinct becomes more remarkable, and 

 in insects especially, in which reason is almost if not absolutely wanting, 

 instinct is exhibited in its highest i)erfection, far surpassing, in many 

 instancies, in accuracy and prescience, the reason of man hiujsclf. 



Of the nature of the instinct of animals, as of that of the human 

 mind, we know absolutely nothing; and we can only confess our igno- 

 raiu'c by referring its wondeiful manifestations to the «lirect agency of 

 the Creator. 



INSECTS FROM A PRACTICAL OR ECONOMIC POINT OF VIEW. 



In regarding insects from this point of view, we have to consider 



them in both their beneficial and their injurious relations. The directly 



beneficial insects are almost limited to the three veell-known species : 



the honey-bee, the sUk-worm and the cochineal-insect j whereas, those 



—3 



