INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 519 



news of the booty to his comrades, who would not other- 

 wise have at once directed their steps in a body to the 

 only accessible route. 



A German artist, a man of strict veracity, states that 

 in his journey through Italy he was an eye-witness to 

 the following occurrence. He observed a species of 

 Scarabaeus (Ateuchus pilularius?} busily engaged in 

 making, for the reception of its egg, a pellet of dung, 

 which when finished it rolled to the summit of a small 

 hillock, and repeatedly suffered to tumble down its side, 

 apparently for the sake of consolidating it by the earth 

 which each time adhered to it. During this process the 

 pellet unluckily fell into an adjoining hole, out of which 

 all the efforts of the beetle to extricate it were in vain. 

 After several ineffectual trials, the insect repaired to an 

 adjoining heap of dung, and soon returned with three 

 of his companions. All four now applied their united 

 strength to the pellet, and at length succeeded in push- 

 ing it out ; which being done, the three assistant beetles 

 left the spot and returned to their own quarters a . 



Lastly, insects are endowed with memory, which (at 

 least in connexion with the purposes to which it is sub- 

 servient) implies some degree of reason also ; and their 

 historian may exclaim with the poet who has so well 

 sung the pleasures of this faculty, 



Hail, MEMORY, hail ! thy universal reign 

 Guards the least link of Being's glorious chain. 



In the elegant lines in which this couplet occurs 5 , 



a Illiger Mag. i. 488. 



b " Hark ! the bee winds her small but mellow horn, 



Blithe to salute the sunny smile of morn. O'er 



