514 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



purely instinctive, and which the result of reason. 

 What I advance, therefore, on this head, I wish to be 

 regarded rather as conjectures, that, after the best con- 

 sideration I am able to give to a subject so much beyond 

 my depth, seem to me plausible, than as certainties 

 to which I require your implicit assent. 



That reason has nothing to do with the major part 

 of the actions of insects is clear, as I have before ob- 

 served, from the determinateness and perfection of 

 these actions, and from their being performed inde-» 

 pendently of instruction and experience. A young bee 

 (I must once more repeat) betakes itself to the complex 

 operation of building cells, with as much skill as the 

 oldest of its compatriots. We cannot suppose that it 

 has any knowledge of the purposes for which the cells 

 are destined ; or of the effects that Avill result from its 

 feeding the young larvae, and the like. And if an in- 

 dividual bee be thus destitute of the very materials of 

 reasoning as to its main operations, so must the society 

 in general. 



Nor in those remarkable deviations and accommo- 

 dations to circumstances, instanced under a former head, 

 can we, for considerations there assigned, suppose in- 

 sects to be influenced by reason. These deviations are 

 still limited in number, and involve acts far too com- 

 plex and recondite to spring from any process of ratio- 

 cination in an animal whose term of life does not ex- 

 ceed two years. 



It does not follow, however, that reason may not 

 have a part in inducing some of these last-mentioned 

 actions, though the actions themselves are purely in- 

 atinctive. I do not pretend to explain in w hat way or 



