OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 157 



The peculiar structure of the flower which prevents self-fertiliza- 

 tion, though on a superficial view it strikes one as a disadvantage, is 

 in reality a great benefit; while the maxillary tentacle of the female 

 moth is very plainly an advantage to her species in the " struggle for 

 life;" and it is quite easy to conceive, on Darwinian grounds, how both 

 these characters may gradually have been produced in the course of 

 time from archetypal forms which possessed neither. These peculiar- 

 ities are, moreover, mutually and reciprocally beneficial, so that the 

 plant and the animal are each influenced and modified by the other, 

 and the same laws which produced the beneficial specialization of 

 parts would maintain them by the elimination of all forms tending to 

 depart from them. 



It may be that the glutinous nature of the pollen renders consec- 

 taneous its accumulation by the spinous maxillary tentacles of the 

 female moth; and that, when she is sipping nectar, the vigorous work- 

 ing of head and body from side to side is simply an effort to get rid of an 

 incumbrance. It may be that all her actions are the result merely of 

 "blind instinct," by which term proud man has been wont to desig- 

 nate the doings of inferior animals ; but for my part; I have not been 

 able to watch her operations without feeling that there is in all of 

 them as much of purpose as there is in those of the female Pelopceus^ 

 who so assiduously collects, paralyzes, and stores away in her mud- 

 dabs, the spiders which are to nourish her young; or in the many other 

 curious provisions which insects make for their progeny, which, in the 

 majority of instances, they are destined never to behold. Nor can I 

 see any good reason for denying these lowly creatures a degree of con- 

 sciousness of what they are about, or even of what will result from 

 their labors. They have an object in view, and whether we attribute 

 their performances to reason or instinct depends altogether upon the 

 meaning we give to these words. Define instinct as "congenital- 

 habit," or "inherited association," and most of the doings of the lower 

 animals may be very justly called instinctive. But I can not help 

 thinking that the instinctive and reasoning faculties are both present, 

 in most animals, in varying proportion, the last being called into play 

 more especially by unusual and exceptional circumstances; and that 

 the power which guides the $ Pronuha in her actions differs only in 

 degree from that which directs a bird in building its nest, or which 

 governs many of the actions of rational man. 



I will conclude by referring to one practical phase of this subject. 

 As the insect and its food-plant are inseparable under natural condi- 

 tions, the former doubtless occurs wherever the latter grows wild. 

 Pods of Y. angustifolia which I gathered on the Black Hills of Col- 

 orada,in 1867, all show the unmistakable holes of egress of the larvas ; 

 while those of Y. rvplGola from Texas, of Y. Whipplei from Califor- 

 nia, and of others from South Carolina and Texas, now in the herba- 

 rium of Dr. Engelmann, all show this infallible sign of having been 



