LETTER XXVII. 



ON THE INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



1 HE greater part of those surprising facts connected 

 with the manners and economy of insects, of which the 

 relation has occupied the preceding letters, is to be re- 

 ferred, I have told you, to their instinct. But 'what, you 

 will ask, is this instinct ? — of what nature is this faculty 

 which produces effects so extraordinary? 



To this query I do not pretend to give any satisfac- 

 tory answer. As I am quite of Bonnet's opinion, that 

 philosophers will in vain torment themselves to define 

 instinct, until they have spent some time in the head of 

 an animal without actually being that animal — a species 

 of metempsychosis through which I have never passed — 

 I shall not attempt to explain what this mysterious ener- 

 gy is. It will not, however, I imagine, be very difficult 

 to show what it is not ; and some observations with this 

 view, followed by an enumeration of peculiarities which 

 distinguish the instincts of insects from those of other 

 tribes of animals, and a short inquiry whether their ac- 

 tions are guided solely by instinct, will form the substance 

 of this letter. 



