554 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



I have now instanced at least thirty distinct instincts with which every 

 individual of the nurses amongst the working-bees is endowed; and if to 

 the account be added their care to carry from the hive the dead bodies of 

 any of the community; their pertinacity in their battles, in directing their 

 sting at those parts only of the bodies of their adversaries which are pe- 

 netrable by it; their annual autumnal murder of the drones, &c. &c. it 

 is certain that this number might be very considerably increased, perhaps 

 doubled. 



At the first view you will be inclined to suspect some fallacy in this 

 enumeration, and that this variety of actions ought to be referred rather to 

 some general principle, capable of accommodating itself to different cir- 

 cumstances, than to so many different kinds of instinct. But to what 

 principle ? Not to reason, the faculty to which we assign this power of 

 varying accommodation. All the actions above adduced come strictly 

 under the description of instinctive actions, being all performed by every 

 generation of bees since the creation of the world, and as perfectly a day 

 or two after their birth as at any subsequent period. And as the very 

 essence of instinct consists in the determinate character of the actions to 

 which it gives birth, it is clear that every distinctly different action must 

 be referred to a distinct instinct. Few will dispute that the instinct which 

 leads a duck to resort to the water is a different instinct from that which 

 leads her to sit upon her eggs ; for the hen, though endowed with one, is 

 not with the other. In fact, they are as distinct and unconnected as the 

 senses of sight and smell ; and it appears to me that it would be as con- 

 trary to philosophical accuracy of language in the former case to call the 

 two instincts modifications of each other, as in the latter so to designate 

 the two senses ; and as we say that a deaf and blind man has fewer senses 

 than other men, so (strictly) we ought not to speak of instinct as one 

 faculty (though to avoid circumlocution, I have myself often employed this 

 common mode of expression), or say that one insect has a greater or less 

 share of instinct than another, but more or fewer instincts. That it is not 

 always easy to determine what actions are to be referred to a distinct in- 

 stinct and what to a modification of an instinct, I am very ready to admit ; 

 but this is no solid ground for regarding all instincts as modifications of 

 some one principle. It is often equally difficult to fix the limits between 

 instinct and reason ; but we are not on this account justified in deeming 

 them the same. 



This multitude of instincts in the same individual becomes more wonder- 

 ful when considered in another point of view. Were they constantly to 

 follow each other in regular sequence, so that each bee necessarily first 

 began to build cells, then to collect honey, next pollen, and so on, we 

 might plausibly enough refer them to some change in the sensations of the 

 animal, caused by alterations in the structure and gradual development of 

 its organs, in the same way as on similar principles we explain the sexual 

 instincts of the superior tribes. But it is certain that no such consecutive 

 series prevails. The different instincts of the bee are called into action in 

 an order regulated solely by the needs of the society. If combs be wanted, 

 no bee collects honey for storing until they are provided 1 ; and if, when 

 constructed, any accident injure or destroy them, every labour is suspended 

 until the mischief is repaired or new ones substituted. 2 When the crevices 



1 Huber, ii. 64. 2 Ibid. ii. 138. 



