INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 539 



adapted in capacity to different orders of the society, and storehouses for 

 containing a supply of provision ? Even the erections of the beaver, and 

 the pensile dwelling of the tailor-bird, must be referred to a less elaborate 

 instinct than that which guides the procedures of these little insects, the 

 complexness and yet perfection of whose operations, when contrasted with 

 the insignificance of the architect, have at all times caused the reflecting 

 observer to be lost in astonishment. 



It is, however, in the deviations of the instincts of insects, and their 

 accommodation to circumstances, that the exquisiteness of these faculties 

 is most decidedly manifested. The instincts of the larger animals seem 

 capable of but slight modification. They are either exercised in their 

 full extent or not all. A bird when its nest is pulled out of a bush, 

 though it should be laid uninjured close by, never attempts to replace it 

 in its situation ; it contents itself with building another. But insects in 

 similar contingencies often exhibit the most ingenious resources, their 

 instincts surprisingly accommodating themselves to the new circumstances 

 in which they are placed, in a manner more wonderful and incompre- 

 hensible than the existence of the faculties themselves. Take a honey- 

 comb, for instance. If every comb that bees fabricate were always made 

 precisely alike with the same general form, placed in the same position, 

 the cells all exactly similar, or where varying with the variations always 

 alike this structure would perhaps in reality be not more astonishing 

 than many of a much simpler conformation. But when we know that in 

 nine instances out of ten the combs in a bee-hive are thus similar in their 

 properties, and yet that the tenth one shall be found of a form altogether 

 peculiar ; placed in a different position ; with cells of a different shape 

 and all these variations evidently adapted to some new circumstances not 

 present when the other nine were constructed, we are constrained to 

 admit that nothing in the instinct of other animals can be adduced exhibit- 

 ing similar exquisiteness : just as we must confess an ordinary loom, how- 

 ever ingeniously contrived, far excelled by one capable of repairing its 

 defects when out of order. 



The examples of this variation and accommodation to circumstances 

 among insects are very numerous ; and as presenting many interesting 

 facts in their history not before related, I shall not fear wearying you with 

 a pretty copious detail of them, beginning with the more simple. 



It is the instinct of Geotropes vernalis to roll up pellets of dung, in each 

 of which it deposits one of its eggs ; and in places where it meets with 

 cow or horse dung only, it is constantly under the necessity of having 

 recourse to this process. But in districts where sheep are kept, this beetle 

 wisely saves its labour, and ingeniously avails itself of the pellet-shaped 

 balls ready made to its hands which the excrement of these animals sup- 

 plies. 1 



A caterpillar described by Bonnet, which from being confined in a box 

 was unable to obtain a supply of the bark with which its ordinary instinct 

 directs it to make its cocoon, substituted pieces of paper that were given 

 to it, tied them together with silk, and constructed a very passable cocoon 

 with them. In another instance the same naturalist having opened several 

 cocoons of a moth (Cucullia Verbasci), which are composed of a mixture 

 of grains of earth and silk, just after being finished, the larvae did not 

 repair the injury in the same manner. Some employed both earth and silk ; 

 1 Sturm, Deutschlands Fauna, i. 27. 



