28 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



nests contain a numerous family of helpless brood. Does 

 not love here seem to urge them to that exemplary and 

 fond attention, and those unremitted and indefatigable 

 exertions manifested by the whole community for the 

 benefit of these dear objects ? Is it not also evidenced 

 by their general and singular attachment to their females, 

 by their mutual caresses, by their feeding each other, by 

 their apparent sympathy with suffering individuals and 

 endeavours to relieve them, by their readiness to help 

 those that are in difficulty, and finally by their sports 

 and assemblies for relaxation ? That fear produces its 

 influence upon them seems no less evident, when we see 

 them, agitated by the approach of enemies, endeavour 

 to remove what is most dear to them beyond their reach, 

 unite their efforts to repel their attacks, and to construct 

 works of defence. They appear to have besides a com- 

 mon language ; for they possess the faculty, by significa- 

 tive gestures and sounds, of communicating their wants 

 and ideas to each other 3 . 



There are, however, the following great differences 

 between human societies and those of insects. Man is 

 susceptible of individual attachment, which forms the 

 basis of his happiness, and the source of his purest and 

 dearest enjoyments : whereas the love of insects seems 

 to be a kind of instinctive patriotism that is extended to 

 the whole community, never distinguishing individuals, 

 unless, as in the instance of the female bee, connected 

 with that great object. 



a It is not here meant to be asserted that insects are actuated by 

 these passions in the same way that man is, but only that in their 

 various instincts they exhibit the semblance of them, and as it were 

 symbolize them. 



