PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 135 



ornithologists, more particularly with respect to the 

 pheasant and the pea-hen a . For females to assume the 

 secondary characters of males, seems certainly a more 

 violent change, than for a worker bee, which may be 

 regarded as a sterile female, in consequence of a certain 

 process, to assume the secondary characters of a fertile 

 female. 



With respect to the variations of instinct and cha- 

 racter which result from the different modes of rearing 

 the young bees that we are now considering ; it woulcl 

 not, I think, be difficult to prove, that causes at first 

 sight equally inadequate have produced effects full as 

 important on the habits, tempers, and characters of men 

 and other animals : but as these will readily occur to 

 you, I shall not now enlarge upon them. 



Did we know the causes of the various deviations, as 

 to form and the like, observable in the three kingdoms 

 of nature, and could apply them, we should be able to 

 produce these deviations at our pleasure. This is ex- 

 actly what the bees do. Their instinct teaches them 

 that a certain kind of food, supplied to a grub inhabiting 

 a certain dwelling, in a certain position, will produce 

 certain effects upon it, rendering it different from what 

 it would have been under ordinary circumstances, and 

 fitted to answer their peculiar wants. 



I trust that these arguments and probabilities will in 

 some degree reconcile you to what at first sight seems so 

 extraordinary and extravagant a doctrine. If not yet 

 fully satisfied, I can only recommend your having re- 

 course to experiments yourself. Leaving you therefore 



a Philos. Trans. 1792. viii. 167. Hunter on certain Farts of the 

 Animal (Economy, p. 65. Latham, Synops. ii. 672. t. 60. 



