112 DIFFERENT KINDS OF INSTINCT. 





house, exhibit marks of the greatest uneasiness, because they 

 cannot find a proper nidus for their eggs ; and when every 

 other resource fails, they paste the eggs on the panes of the 

 window. 



Some species of animals look to future wants. Others, as 

 the bee and the beaver, are endowed with an instinct which 

 has the appearance of foresight. They construct magazines, 

 and fill them with provisions. 



The common bees attend the female, or queen, do her many 

 little services, and even feed her with honey from their trunks. 

 When deprived of the female, all their labors cease, till a 

 new one is obtained, whom they treat with much respect, and 

 renew their usual operation. They make cells of three dif- 

 ferent dimensions, for holding workers, drones, and females; 

 and the queen-bee, in depositing her eggs, distinguishes the 

 three different kinds, and never puts a royal or a drone egg 

 into the cells destined for the reception of the working bees. 

 What is equally singular, the number of these cells is pro- 

 portioned to that of the different bees to be produced. One 

 royal cell weighs as much as one hundred of the common 

 kind. When there are several females in a hive, the bees 

 work little till they have destroyed all the females but one. 

 If more than a single female were allowed to remain in a 

 hive, a greater number of eggs would be laid than the work- 

 ing bees are able to make cells for receiving. 



The wood-piercing bee, which is one of the solitary species, 

 gnaws, with amazing rapidity and perseverance, a large hole 

 in old timber. After laying her eggs in the cells, she deposits 

 such a quantity of glutinous matter, as nourishes the worms 

 produced from these eggs till the time of their transformation 

 into flies. She then pastes up the mouth of the hole, and 

 leaves her future offspring to the provision she has made for 

 them. 



The bees of that species which build cylindrical nests with 

 rose leaves, exhibit a very peculiar instinct. They first dig a 

 cylindrical hole in the earth. When that operation is fin- 

 ished, they go in quest of rose-bushes ; and, after selecting 

 leaves proper for their purpose, they cut oblong, curved, and 

 even round pieces, exactly suited to form the different parts 

 of the cylinder. 



The solitary wasp digs holes in the sand.. In each hole she 

 deposits an egg. But how is the worm, after it is hatched, to 

 be nourished ? Here the instinct of the mother merits atten- 

 tion. Though she feeds not upon flesh herself, and certainly 



