368 What are Animals and Plants f 



ganic bodies, and leads naturally to the next point we would 

 refer to. 



Closely allied to habit is instinct, a power, the presence 

 of which cannot indeed be adduced as a character distin- 

 guishing all living beings from bodies devoid of life, but 

 which none the less is so remarkable a property of many 

 animals that it may well claim, for our present purpose, to 

 be here briefly referred to in passing. 



We have no space here to describe at length examples of 

 animal instinct ; we can but very briefly refer to such well- 

 known instances as the simulated lameness of certain birds, 

 the insects which become quiescent to escape an enemy (what 

 is wrongly called shamming death), and provision for the 

 future, as in the wasp sphex, the carpenter bee, and the stag 

 beetle. Certain instincts, however, have a very peculiar signi- 

 ficance ; such are those by which a grub will repair its in- 

 jured cocoon or a spider its injured web, and those by which 

 lobsters and crabs, when one of their limbs is injured, will 

 throw off the injured stump as far up as one of its joints, 

 whence alone the limb can again grow forth and be repro- 

 duced. Such creatures cannot be supposed to know the 

 effect of such spontaneous amputations, and therefore their 

 actions lead us naturally to consider other unconscious or- 

 ganic actions by which lost parts are more or less perfectly 

 reproduced — actions which display a purpose and intention 

 (although unconscious) in a way which resembles nothing in 

 the inorganic world. 



In the process of healing and repair of a wounded part of 

 our body we meet with wonderful phenomena.^ But repairs 

 of injuries of a far more surprising kind are found amongst 

 the lower animals, and repair in the vegetal world is so 

 common that it ceases to excite our surprise. Such uncon- 

 scious and purposive organic actions are allied to instinctive 



' See ante, p. 335. 



