INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 515 



degree tliey are combined ; but certainly some of the 

 facts do not seem to admit of explanation, except on 

 this supposition. Thus, in the instance above cited from 

 Huber, in which the bees bent a comb at right angles 

 in order to avoid a slip of glass, the remarkable varia- 

 tions in the form of the cells can only, as I have there 

 said, be referred to instinct. Yet the original deter- 

 mination to avoid the glass seems, as Huber himself ob- 

 serves, to indicate something more than instinct, since 

 glass is not a substance against which Nature can be sup- 

 posed to have forewarned bees, there being nothing in 

 hollow trees (their natural abodes) resembling it either 

 in polish or substance : and what was most striking in 

 their operations was, that they did not wait until they 

 had reached the surface of the glass before changing 

 the direction of the comb, but adopted this varial ion 

 at a considerable distance, as though they foresaw the 

 inconveniences which might result from another mode 

 of construction^. — However difficult it may be to form 

 a clear conception of this union of instinct and reason 

 in the same operation, or to define precisely the limits 

 of each, instances of these mixed actions are sufficiently 

 common among animals to leave little doubt of the 

 fact. It is instinct whifch leads a greyhound to pursue 

 a hare ; but it must be reason that directs " an old 

 greyhound to trust the more fatiguing part of the chase 

 to the younger, and to place himself so as to meet the 

 hare in her doubles'*." 



As another instance of these mixed actions in whicli 

 both reason and instinct seem concerned, but the for- 

 mer more decidedly, may be cited the account which 



^ Huber, ii, 219. " Ilunn-'s Essay on tJie Reason of Animals. 



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