398 BOARD OF AGEICULTURE. 



give a series of definitions and explanations, which will aid 

 ns in understanding the nature of instinctive actions and their 

 relation to functional and reflex action on the one hand, and 

 intelligent action on the other. . 



1. An instinct may be defined as an impidse to a particular 

 hind of action, which the being needs to perform as an indi- 

 vidual or representative of a species; but which it could not 

 possibly learn to perform before it needs to act. 



Instinct, as a general term, properly includes all the origi- 

 nal impulses (excepting the appetites) and that apparent 

 knowledge and skill which animals have without experience. 



There are some actions that have been regarded as instinc- 

 tive that are probably only reflex; that is, actions produced 

 without volition as the immediate effect of some stimulus upon 

 a nerve or nerve centre. The stinging by a bee is plainly a 

 reflex action, because the abdomen of the bee, when severed 

 from the thorax, will not only thrust out the sting, but will 

 direct the sting toward the part that is touched. But when 

 the bee flies at an enemy in defence of its nest, the act is 

 instinctive, as that term is generally used. The definition of 

 reflex action has been so extended by some as to embrace 

 all the acts which we term instinctive (Descartes, Herbert 

 Spencer). We cannot, however, regard the return of fishes 

 to their breeding-places, the migration of birds, or the storing 

 up of food by animals of different kinds, as in any proper 

 sense reflex actions. They are so complex, involve so much 

 of time and space for their completion, and so simulate the 

 wisest and most skilful actions of intelligent beings, that they 

 at least deserve a specific name, which we have in the word 

 instinctive. 



The activities properly denominated instinctive may be 

 classified into four groups. 



(a) Impidses arising beyond the sphere of the appetites or 

 ministering to the appetites, as the impulse to migrate, to store 

 food for winter; also the desires (so called) in man. 



(b) Ability (knowledge?) without instruction, for meeting 

 the demands of the appetites and desires, and for doing those 

 things essential for the continuance of the individual and the 

 species. 



(c) Ability (knowledge?) arising independently of any 



