166 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS. 



markable cases. Thus, to give only a few. Reaumur and 

 Swanderdam assert that a young Bee, as soon as its wings are 

 dry, will collect honey and construct a cell as efficiently as 

 the oldest inhabitant of the hive.* Numberless insects, also, 

 can never have seen their parents, and yet they perform 

 instinctive actions perfectly, though it may be only once in 

 their life-times — such, for instance, as the Ichneumon, which 

 deposits its eggs in the body of a larva hidden between the 

 scales of a fir-cone, which it can never have seen, and yet 

 knows where to seek.f 



A kind of insect called the Bembex conveys food to its 

 young which are shut up in a cell, and it has recently been 

 made the subject of some interesting experiments by M. 

 Fabre. Of these the following is an epitome : — 



" The insect brings from time to time fresh food to her 

 young, and it is remarkable how the Bembex remembers the 

 entrance to her cell, covered as it is with sand, exactly to our 

 eyes like that all round. Yet she never makes a mistake or 

 loses her way. On the other hand M. Fabre found that if he 

 removed the surface of the earth and the passage, thus ex- 

 posing the cell and the larva, the Bembex was quite at a loss, 

 and did not even recognize her own offspring. It seems as if 

 she knew the doors, nursery, and the passage, but not her 

 child. Another ingenious experiment of M. Fabre's was 

 made with Chalicodoma. This genus is enclosed in an earthen 

 cell, through which at maturity the young insect eats its way. 

 M. Fabre found that if he pasted a piece of paper round the 

 cell the insect had no difficulty in eating through it, but if he 

 enclosed the cell in a paper case, so that there was a space 

 even of only a few lines between the cell and the paper, in 

 that case the paper formed an effectual prison. The instinct 

 of the insect taught it to bite through one enclosure, but it 

 had not wit enough to do so a second time." J 



But I think that perhaps the most remarkable instance 

 of all that can be quoted from the insect world to show the 

 extraordinary perfection of early-formed instincts, is one 

 which is apt to be overlooked — and indeed, so far as I know, 

 has been overlooked — on account of its frequency. I refer to 

 the enormous body of instincts, all having reference to a 

 totally different environment and habits of life, which those 

 insects that undergo a complete metamorphosis present fully- 



* Kirby and Spence, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 470. t Ibid., i, p. 357. 



% Sir J. Lubbock, Address to Entomol. Soc, 1882. 



