INSTINCTS. 205 



Moths and butterflies, as has ah'eady been observed, seel- 

 out for their eggs those precise situations and substances in 

 which the oflspring caterpillar will find its appropriate food. 

 That dear caterpillar the parent butterfly must never see. 

 There are no experiments to prove that she would retain 

 any knowledge of it, if she did. How shall we account for 

 her conduct ? I do not mean for her art and judgment in 

 selecting and securing a maintenance for her young, but for 

 the impulse upon which she acts. What should induce her 

 to exert any art, or judgment, or choice, about the matter ? 

 The undisclosed grub, the animal which she is destined not 

 to know, can hardly be the object of a particular afiection 

 if we deny the influence of instinct. There is nothing there- 

 fore left to her, but that of which her nature seems incapa- 

 ble, an abstract anxiety for the general preservation of th(^ 

 species — a kind of patriotism — a solicitude lest the butterfly 

 race should cease from the creation. 



Lastly, the principle of association will not explain tht 

 discontinuance of the afiection when the young animal is 

 grown up. Association operating in its usual way, would 

 rather produce a contrary effect. The object would become 

 more necessary by habits of society ; whereas birds and 

 beasts, after a certain time, banish their oflspring, disown 

 their acquaintance, seem to have even no knowledge of the 

 objects which so lately engrossed the attention of their minds, 

 and occupied the industry and labor of their bodies. This 

 change, in different animals, takes place at diflerent distan- 

 ces of time from the birth ; but the time always corresponds 

 with the ability of the young animal to maintain itself, never 

 anticipates it. In the sparrow tribe, when it is perceived 

 that the young broud can fly and shift for themselves, th( n 

 the parents forsake them for ever ; and though they continue 

 to live together, pay them no more attention than they do to 

 other birds in the same flock. ^ I believe the same thing is 

 true of all gregarious quadrupeds. 



* Goldsmith's Natural History, vol. iv., p. 244. 



