466 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



worth, who referred this faculty to a certain plastic na- 

 ture; or that of Des Cartes, who contended that ani- 

 mals are mere machines. Nor, I fancy, would you 

 thank me for entering into an elaborate refutation of 

 the doctrine of Mylius, that many of the actions deemed 

 instinctive are the effect of painful corporeal feelings ; 

 the cocoon of a caterpillar, for instance, being the re- 

 sult of a fit of the colic, produced by a superabund- 

 ance of the gum which fills its silk-bags, and which ex- 

 uding, is twisted round it, by its uneasy contortions, into 

 a regular ball. Still less need I advert to the notable 

 discovery of some pupils of Professor Winckler, that 

 the brain, alias the soul, of a bee or spider, is impress- 

 ed at the birth of the insect with certain geometrical 

 figures, according to which models its works are con- 

 structed, — a position which these gentlemen demon- 

 strate very satisfactorily by a memorable experiment 

 in which they themselves were able to hear triangles. 



It is as unnecessary to waste any words in refutation 

 of the nonsense (for it deserves no better name) of 

 BufFon, who refers the instinct of societies of insects to 

 the circumstance of a great number of individuals being 

 brought into existence at the same time, all acting with 

 equal force, and obliged by the similarity of their in- 

 ternal and external structure, and the conformity of 

 their movements, to perform each the same actions, 

 in the same place, in the most convenient mode for 

 themselves, and least inconvenient for their compa- 

 nions ; whence results a regular, well-proportioned, 

 and symmetrical structure : and he gravely tells us 

 that the boasted hexagonal cells of bees are produced 



