INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 489 



then comprehend the difficulties which our little archi- 

 tects had to encounter. The resources of their instinct, 

 however, were adequate to the emergency. They made 

 the cells on the convex side of the bent part of the comb 

 much larger, and those on the concave side much smaller 

 than usual ; the former having three or four times the 

 diameter of the latter. But this was not all. As the 

 bottoms of the small and large cells were as usual com- 

 mon to both, the cells were not regular prisms, but the 

 small ones considerably wider at the bottom than at the 

 top, and conversely in the large ones ! What concep- 

 tion can we form of so wonderful a flexibility of instinct? 

 How, as Huber asks, can we comprehend the mode in 

 which such a crowd of labourers, occupied at the same 

 time on the edge of the comb, could agree to give to it 

 the same curvature from one extremity to the other ; or 

 how they could arrange together to construct on one 

 face cells so small, while on the other they imparted to 

 them such enlarged dimensions ? And how can we feel 

 adequate astonishment that they should have the art of 

 making cells of such different sizes correspond a ? 



After this long but I flatter myself not wholly unin- 

 teresting enumeration, you will scarcely hesitate to ad- 

 mit that insects, and of these the be,e pre-eminently, are 

 endowed with a much more exquisite and flexible in- 

 stinct than the larger animals. But you may be here 

 led to ask, Can all this be referred to instinct ? Is not 

 this pliability to circumstances this surprising adapta- 

 tion of means for accomplishing an end rather the re- 

 sult of reason ? 



* Huber, ii. 219. 



