INSTINCTS. 203 



alluded to taking place chiefly, if not solely, among domesti- 

 cated fowls, in which nature is forced out of her course. 



There is another case of oviparous economy, which i« 

 still less likely to be the eflcct of education than it is even in 

 birds, namely, that of Q7ioths and butterflies, which deposit 

 their eggs in the precise substance, that of a cabbage for ex 

 ample, from which, not the butterfly herself, but the caterpil- 

 lar which is to issue from her egg, draws its appropriate fcod. 

 The butterfly cannot taste the cabbage — cabbage is no food 

 for her ; yet in the cabbage, not by chance, but studiously and 

 electively, she lays her eggs. There are, among many other 

 kinds, the willow-caterpillar and the cabbage-caterpillar ; but 

 we never find upon a willow the caterpillar which eats the 

 cabbage, nor the converse. This choice, as appears to me, 

 cannot in the butterfly proceed from instruction. She had no 

 teacher in her caterpillar state. She never knew her parent. 

 I do not see, therefore, how knowledge acquired by experi- 

 ence, if it ever were such, could be transmitted from one gen- 

 eration to another. There is no opportunity either for instruc- 

 tion or imitation. The parent race is gone before the new 

 brood is hatched. And if it be original reasoning in the but- 

 terfly, it is profound reasoning indeed. She must remember 

 her caterpillar state, its tastes and habits, of which memory 

 she shows no signs whatever. She must conclude from anal- 

 ogy, for here her recollection cannot serve her, that the little 

 round body which drops from her abdomen will at a future 

 period produce a living creature, not like herself, but like the 

 caterpillar which she remembers herself once to have been. 

 Under the influence of these reflections, she goes about to 

 make provision for an order of things which she concludes 

 will some time or other take place. And it is to be observed, 

 that not a few out of many, but that all butterflies argue 

 thus ; all draw this conclusion ; all act upon it. 



But suppose the address, and the selection, and the plan, 

 wliich we perceive in the preparations which many irra^ 

 tional animals make for their young, to be traced to some 



