APPENDIX. ;583 



stances ; but " the workers themselves act as if they suffered 

 in their instinct i'vom the imperfect state of their queen, for 

 they fed these male larwe with royal jelly and treat them 

 as they would a real (|ueen.''* But what is more surprising, 

 the workers of Humble-bees habitually endeavour to seize 

 and devour the eggs of their own queens ; and the utmost 

 activity of the mothers is "scarcely adequate to prevent this 

 violence."t Can this strange instinctive liabit be of any 

 service to the Bee ? Seeing tlie innumerable and admiral)le 

 instincts all directed to rear and multiply young, can we 

 believe, with Kirby and Spence, that this strange aberrant 

 instinct is given them " to keep the population within 

 due bounds V Can the instinct which leads the female 

 spider savagely to attack and devour the male after pairing 

 with liimj be of service to the species ? The carcase 

 of her husband no doubt nourishes her ; and without some 

 better explanation can be given, we are thus reduced to the 

 grossest utilitarianism, compatible, it must be confessed, with 

 the theory of natural selection. I fear that to the foregoing 

 cases a long catalogue could be added. 



Conclusion. — We have in this chapter chiefly considered 

 the instincts of animals under the point of view whether it is 

 possible that they could have been acquired through the 

 means indicated on our theory, or whether, even if the simpler 

 ones could have been thus acquired, others are so comj)lex 

 and wonderful that they must have been specially endowed, 

 and thus overthrow the theory. Bearing in mind the facts 

 given on the acquirement, through the selection of self-origi- 

 nating tricks or modification of instinct, or through training 

 and habit, aided in some slight degree by imitation, of here- 

 ditary actions and dispositions in our domesticated animals ; 

 and their parallelism (subject to ha\nng less time) to the 

 instincts of animals in a state of nature : bearing in mind 

 tliat in a state of nature instincts do certainly vary in some 

 slight degree : bearing in mind how very generally we find in 

 allied but distinct animals a gradation in the more complex 

 instincts, which show that it is at least possible that a complex 

 instinct might have been acquired by successive steps ; and 



* Kirby and Spence, Entomology, vol. ii, p. 161 (3rd ed.). 

 t Ihid., vol. i, p. 380. 



X Ibid., vol. i, p. 280. A long list of several insects wliicli either in 

 tlicir larval or mature condition will devour eacli other is given. 



