INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 49/ 



€^ntifically as their brethren, who canl)oast the experi- 

 ence of a long- life of twelve months duration ; — we 

 must stiil regard these actions as variations of instinct. 



In the second place, no degree of reason that we can 

 with any share of probability attribute to bees, could be 

 competent to the performance of labours so compli- 

 cated as those we have been considering, and which, 

 if the result of reason, would involve the most exten- 

 sive and varied knowledge in the agents. Suppose a 

 man to have attained by long practice the art of mo- 

 delling wax into a congeries of uniform hexagonal cells, 

 with pyramidal bottoms composed each of three rhombs, 

 resembling the cells of workers among bees. Let him 

 now be set to make a congeries of similar but larger 

 cells (answering to the male cells), and unite these 

 with the former by other hexagonal cells, so that there 

 should be no disruption in the continuity or regularity 

 of the whole assemblage, and no vacant intervals or 

 patching at the junctions either of the tubes or the bot- 

 toms of the cells ; — and you would have set him no 

 very easy task — a task, in short, which it may be 

 doubted if he would satisfactorily perform in a twelve- 

 month, though gifted with a clear head and a compe- 

 tent store of geometrical knowledge, and which, if des- 

 titute of these requisites, it maybe safely asserted that 

 lie would never perform at all. How then can we 

 imagine it possible that this difficult problem, and others 

 of a similar kind, can be so completely and exactly 

 solved by animals of which some are not two days old, 

 others not a week, and probably none twelve months ? 

 The conclusion is irresistible — it is not reason but in- 

 satinet that is their guide. 



TOT.. IT. 2 K 



