24 INSTINCT ADAPTS ITSELF 



peculiar arrangements for the future, and the good 

 order of a numerous society of different gradations of 

 rank and utility. It is, however, in the deviations of 

 the instinct of insects, and their power of adapting 

 their operations to a change of circumstance that the 

 exquisiteness of these faculties is most decidedly mani- 

 fested. If the nest of a bird is pulled out of a bush, 

 though otherwise uninjured, she has no resource but 

 to build another ; but if insects in particular situa- 

 ations are disturbed in their usual mode of proceeding, 

 or by the act of man placed in entirely novel circum- 

 stances, they surprise us by the wonderful ingenuity 

 with which they adapt their actual powers to their 

 new position. I once confined the caterpillar of the 

 puss moth in a small basket, when about to undergo 

 its transformation into the chrysalis state. It was 

 covered over with a fine piece of net at the top. Two 

 were in the same basket : one fixed itself to the lace 

 net, the cotton texture of which was evidently pre- 

 ferred by it to the smooth osier, for it rambled all 

 round its enclosure and seemed to be choosing with 

 "great deliberation a favourable spot to begin its opera- 

 tions. When decided, it thickened the lace by smear- 

 ing it with a strong glutinous liquor from its mouth, 

 which, though it fastened backwards and forwards in 

 thick filaments, it afterwards so covered with this 

 viscous liquid as to leave no traces of thread. But this 



