INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 23 



cited by the general distress^ a minute examination 

 into the cause of the mortality ensued ; and it was 

 satisfactorily shown that the honey had been chiefly 

 extracted from the flowers of the kalmia latifolia^ and 

 that the pheasants which had proved thus poison- 

 ouSj had fed harailessly on its leaves. The conse- 

 quence was that a public proclamation was issued, 

 prohibiting the use of pheasants as food for that sea- 

 son.* 



"Kirbyt observes that the instincts of a considerable 

 number of insects are endowed with an exquisiteness 

 to which the higher animals can lay no claim. What 

 bird or fish^ for example^ catches its prey by means of 

 nets as artfully woven and as admirably adapted to 

 their purpose as any that ever fisherman or fowler 

 fabricated ? Yet such nets are constructed by the 

 race of spiders. What beast of prey thinks of digging 

 a pit-fall in the track of the animals which serve it 

 for food, and at the bottom of which it conceals itself, 

 patiently waiting until some unhappy victim is preci- 

 pitated down the sides of its cavern ? Yet this is 

 done by the ant-lion and another insect : and even the 

 dwellings of the beaver, and the hanging nest of the 

 tailor-bird, exhibit less wonderful and elaborate indi- 

 cations of instinct than a society of bees, with all their 



* Oration, by Dr. Mason Good, p. 24. 

 t Vol. ii. p. 472. 



