32 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS* CHAP. I. 



that they have not only their menial servants, or slaves, 

 always ready to perform their bidding, but that they 

 have also their milch cattle, from whom they derive 

 wholesome nourishment at pleasure. These kine'are the 

 dphides, or plant lice, which, at certain seasons of the 

 year, swarm upon the shoots of vegetables : these in- 

 sects secrete a honey-like fluid, which they again eject, 

 and which the ants can force them to yield by alternately 

 patting their abdomen with their antennte. Incredible 

 as it may seem, there is yet reason to believe that these 

 latter insects not only consider the Aphides as their pro- 

 perty, but actually appropriate to themselves a certain 

 number, which they inclose in a tube of earth, or other 

 materials, near their nest, so that they may be always 

 at hand to supply that portion of nutriment they may 

 desire. The yellow ant pays great attention to its 

 herds; plentifully supplying them with proper food, and 

 tending their young with the same tenderness and as- 

 siduity which it exhibits towards its own.* Nor is it 

 merely by these regular and uniform proceedings that 

 insects display their sagacity; since, like some other 

 animals, they will act under the influence of circum- 

 stances altogether novel and unforeseen, with a wisdom 

 and an apparent intelligence, at first sight, equally cu- 

 rious and puzzling. On further observation, however, 

 we find that this intelligence is only apparent ; and that 

 such actions, in fact, are merely the result of a variable 

 or contingent instinct, arising from the same intuitive 

 perception which prompts the more regular operations 

 of animals. Intelligence, indeed, being essentially a 

 free principle, could not be limited in its effects; and if, 

 therefore, we were to allow any portion of it to brutes, 

 we must cede it to them altogether ; a deduction 

 plainly controverted by the fact, that, be the accidental 

 appearances of rationality ever so great, animals are 

 never raised by it to a level even with the most un- 

 civilised human beings, who, being capable of reflection, 



* Kirby and Spence's Introd. to Entomology, vol. ii. p. 9C. 



