176 RELATION BETWEEN ANTS. 
These observations, and many others, 
which I shall not now mention, by show- 
me that it is impossible consistently to refer them 
to instinct, or to account for them without suppos- 
ing some stray ant, that had insinuated herself into 
this tropical crevice, first to have been struck with 
the thought of what a prodigious saving of labour 
and anxiety would occur to her compatriots by 
establishing their society here; that she had com- 
municated her zdeas to them; and that they had 
resolved upon an emigration to this newly dis- 
covered country —this Madeira of ants, whose 
genial clime presented advantages which no other 
situation could offer. Neither instinct, nor any con- 
ceivable modification of instinct, could have taught 
the ants to avail themselves of a good fortune, 
which, but for the invention of glass hives, would 
never have offered itself to a generation of these 
insects since the creation; for there is nothing 
analagous in nature to the constant and equable 
warmth of such a situation, the heat of any acci- 
dental mass of fermenting materials soon ceasing, 
and no heat being given out from a society of bees 
-when lodged in a hollow tree, their natuzal resi- 
dence. ‘The conclusion, tlien, seems irresistible, 
that reason must have been their guide, inducing a 
departure from their natural instinct; as extra. 
ordinary as would be that of a hen which should 
lay her eggs in a hot-bed, and cease to sit upon 
them.” — Introduction to Entomology, by Kirby 
and Spence, Vol. Il. p. 518. — T. 
