294 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OP ANIMALS. CHAP. X. 



the beaver, and the republican grosbeaks mutually 

 represent each other,, not merely in possessing, above 

 all other animals in their respective classes, the greatest 

 development of the social instinct, but equally so, pre- 

 suming that no such quality belonged to any of them. 



(302.) We now come to the PERFECT SOCIETIES 

 found in the insect world. It is among these little 

 creatures that the social principle is developed to such 

 an extraordinary degree, as scarcely to yield to that 

 which is implanted in man, under all the advantages of 

 cultivated reason and high civilisation. When we find 

 all those feelings which sooth or agitate the human 

 breast love, patriotism, affection, kindness, forbear- 

 ance, and disinterestedness on one side ; and anger, 

 courage, self-denial, temperance, and toil, on the other ; 

 possessed of foresight, and with the power of com- 

 municating ideas to their fellows, sufficient for all the 

 purposes of life or enjoyment, how are we astonished 

 at the intelligence of these extraordinary creatures ! and 

 how powerfully and irresistibly do the phenomena of 

 Nature proclaim the wondrous perfection of her God ! 

 " Go to the ant, thou sluggard ; consider her ways, 

 and be wise," is addressed, by the inspired writer, to 

 him who negligently and slothfully makes no use of 

 those powers bestowed on him by his Creator. But the 

 same sentence may be addressed, with equal force, to 

 the sceptic and the infidel to him who doubts, and to 

 him who openly disbelieves, that Divinity itself has 

 produced such creatures for our instruction emblems 

 of all those moral virtues which give strength, unity, 

 and true greatness to a nation, and promote the peace, 

 the happiness, and the contentment of the individual. 

 To do justice, in the following narrative, to the asto- 

 nishing history of these insect communities, is quite 

 impossible : neither the space which we can devote to 

 the subject, nor the accumulated facts that have been 

 contributed to it by many and eminent writers, will 

 permit us to do more than condense the most striking 

 circumstances regarding their history. For these we 



