516 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



in a former letter ^, being desirous of drying a dead toad, 

 fixed it to the top of a piece of wood which he stuck into 

 the ground. But a short time afterwards, he found that 

 a body of these indefatigable little sextons had circum- 

 vented him in spite of his precautions. Not being able 

 to reach the toad, they had undermined the base of the 

 stick until it fell, and then buried both stick and toad^. 



In the second place, insects gain knowledge from ex- 

 perience, which would be impossible if they were not gift- 

 ed with some portion of reason. In proof of their thus 

 profiting, I shall select from the numerous facts that 

 might be brought forward, two only, one of which has 

 been already slightly adverted to '^. 



M. P. Huber, in his valuable paper in the sixth vo- 

 lume of the Linncan Traiisactions '', states that he has 

 seen large humble-bees, when unable from the size of 

 their head and thorax to reach to the bottom of the long 

 tubes of the flowers of beans, go directly to the calyx, 

 pierce it as well as the tube with the exterior horny parts 

 of their proboscis, and then insert their proboscis itself 

 into the orifice and abstract the honey. They thus flew 

 from flower to flower, pierchig the tubes from without, 

 and sucking the nectai', while smaller humble-bees or 

 those with a longer proboscis entered in at the top of the 

 corolla. Now from this statement it seems evident, that 

 the larger bees did not pierce the bottoms of the flowers 

 until they had ascertained by trial that they could not 

 reach the nectar from the top ; but that having once as- 



' Vol.. I. 352. 



^ Gleditsch Physic. Sot. CEcon. Abhandl. iii. 220, 



' See above, p. 1 1 7. "^ p. 222. 



