522 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



noniy of the burying beetle ( Necrophorus Vespillo) i-e- 

 lated in a former letter*, being desirous of drying- a 

 dead toad, fixed it to the top of a short piece of wood 

 which he stuck into the ground. But a short time after- 

 wards, he found that a body of these indefatigable lit- 

 tle sextons had circumvented him in spite of his pre- 

 cautions. Not being able to reach the toad, they had 

 undermined the base of the stick until it fell, and then 

 buried both stick and toad ''. 



In the second place, insects gain knowledge from e.r- 

 perience, which would be impossible if they were not 

 gifted with some portion of reason. In proof of their 

 thus profiting, I shall select from the numerous facts 

 that might be brought forward, two only, one of which 

 has been already slightly adverted to*". 



iVI. P. Huber, in his valuable paper in the sixth 

 volume o^ the Linnean Transactions, states that he has 

 seen large humble-bees, when unable from the size of 

 their head and thorax to reach to the bottom of the 

 long tubes of the flowers of beans, go directly to the 

 calyx, pierce it as well as the tube w ith the exterior 

 horny parts of their proboscis, and then insert their 

 proboscis itself into the orifice and abstract the honey. 

 They thus flew from flower to flower, piercing the tubes 

 from without, and sucking the nectar, while smaller 

 humble bees or those with a longer proboscis entered 

 in at the top of the corolla. Now from this statement 

 it seems evident, that the larger bees did not pierce the 

 bottoms of the flowers until they had ascertained by 



» Vol. 1. 2d Ed. 351. " Gleditsch Physic. Bot. (F.con. Ahhandl.\\\.22,0. 

 <^ See above, p. 11 7. " p 222. 



