INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 525 



Sjsems indisputable that the one ant had in this instance 

 conveyed news of the booty to his comrades, who would 

 not otherwise have at once directed their steps in a 

 body to the only accessible route. 



A German artist, a man of strict veracity, states that 

 in his journey through Italy he was an eye-witness to 

 the following- occurrence. He observed a species of 

 Scarabceus busily engaged in making, for the reception 

 of its egg, a pellet of dung, which when finished it 

 rolled to the summit of a small hillock, and repeatedly 

 suffered to tumble down its side, apparently for the sake 

 of consolidating it by the earth which each time ad- 

 hered to it. Duringthis process the pellet unluckily fell 

 into an adjoining hole, out of which all the efforts of 

 the beetle to extricate it were in vain. After several 

 ineffectual trials, the insect repaired to an adjoining 

 heap of dung, and soon returned with three of his com- 

 panions. All four now applied their united strength 

 to the pellet, and at length succeeded in pushing it 

 out ; which being done, the three assistant beetles left 

 the spot and returned to their own quarters'^. 



Lastly, insects are endowed with memory^ which 

 (at least in connexion with the purposes to which it is 

 subservient) implies some degree of reason also ; and 

 their historian may exclaim with the poet who has so 

 well sung the pleasures of this faculty, 



Hail, Memory, hail ! thy universal reign 

 Guards the least link of Being's glorious chain. 



this wonderful fact in Cuvier's 7?e^ne y^H/mw^, (iii. 486) in which Lji' 

 treille assures us that he has verified Iluber's observations. 

 ' Illiger Mag. i. 488. 



