INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 513 



at all times, and without any necessity of changing their 

 situation, in a constant, equable, and sufficient tempe- 

 rature*. Bonnet observed the same fact. He found 

 that a society of ants had piled up their young to the 

 height of several inches, between the flannel-lined case 

 of his glass hives and the glass. When disturbed they 

 ran away with them, but always replaced them 5 . 



I am persuaded that after duly considering these facts, 

 you will agree with me that it is impossible consistently 

 to refer them to instinct, or to account for them without 

 supposing some stray ant, that had insinuated herself 

 into this tropical crevice, first to have been struck with 

 the thought of what a prodigious saving of labour and 

 anxiety would occur to her compatriots by establishing 

 their society here ; that she had communicated her ideas 

 to them ; and that they had resolved upon an emigra- 

 tion to this new-discovered country this Madeira of 

 ants whose genial clime presented advantages which 

 no other situation could offer. Neither instinct, nor any 

 conceivable modification of instinct, could have taught 

 the ants to avail themselves of a good fortune which but 

 for the invention of glass hives would never have offered 

 itself to a generation of these insects since the creation ; 

 for there is nothing analogous in nature to the constant 

 and equable warmth of such a situation, the heat of any 

 accidental mass of fermenting materials soon ceasing, 

 and no heat being given out from a society of bees when 

 lodged in a hollow tree, their natural residence. The 

 conclusion, then, seems irresistible, that reason must 

 have been their guide, inducing a departure from their 

 natural instinct as extraordinary as would be that of a 



* Reaum. v. 709. b GEttvres, ii, 416, 



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