510 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



and to place himself so as to meet the hare iu her 

 doubles '." • 



As another instance of these mixed actions in which 

 both reason and instinct seem concerned, but the former 

 more decidedly, may be cited the account which Huber 

 gives of the manner in which the bees of some of his 

 neighbours protected themselves against the attacks of 

 the death's-head-moth {Acherontia jltropos), laid before 

 you in a former letter '', by so closing the entrance of the 

 hive with walls, arcades, casements, and bastions, built 

 of a mixture of wax and propolis, that these insidious ma- 

 rauders could no longer intrude themselves. 



We can scarcely attribute these elaborate fortifications 

 to reason simply ; for it appears that bees have recourse 

 to a similar defensive expedient when attacked even by 

 other bees ; and the means employed seem too subtle and 

 too well adapted to the end to be the result of this facidty 

 in a bee. 



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

 this instance instinct was chiefly concerned, if we impar- 

 tially 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 

 Jiist 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 barri- 

 cadoed. But it appears clear from the statement of 

 Huber, that it was not until the hives had been repeat- 

 edly attacked and robbed of nearly their whole stock of 

 honey, that the bees betook themselves to the plan so suc- 

 cessfully adopted for the security of their remaining trea- 

 ' Hume's Essai/ on the Reason of Animals. ^ See above, p. 263 — 



