INSTINCT OF INSECTS. ^}0^ 



wliat I have now in view is that exlraordinanj deve* 

 lopment of instinct, which is dependent not upon the age 

 or any change in the organization of the animal, but upon 

 external events — which in individuals of the same spe- 

 cies, age, and structure, in some circumstances slum- 

 bers unmoved, but may in others be excited to the most 

 sinijular and unlooked-for action. In illustrating this 

 property of instinct, which, as far as I am aware, is not 

 known to occur in any of the larger animals, I shall 

 confine myself as before to the hive-bee; the only insect, 

 indeed, in which its existence has been satisfactorily as- 

 certained, though it is highly probable that other species 

 living in societies may exhibit the same phenomenon. 



Several of the facts occurring in the history of bees 

 might be referred to this head; but I shall here advert 

 only to the treatment of the drones by the workers un- 

 der different circumstances, and to the operations of 

 the latter consequent upon the irretrievable loss of the 

 queen— facts which have been before stated to you, but 

 to the principal features of which my present argu- 

 ment makes it necessary that I should again direct 

 your attention. 



If a hive of bees be this year in possession of a queen 

 duly fertilized, and consequently sure the next season 

 of a succession of males, all the drones, as 1 have be- 

 fore stated*, towards the approach of winter are mas- 

 sacred by the workers with the most unrelenting fero- 

 city. To this seemingly cruel course they are doubts 

 less impelled by an imperious instinct ; and as it is re- 

 gularly followed in every hive thus circumstanced, i^ 

 would seem at the first \iew to be an impulse as inti- 

 ' See above, p. 173 — . 



