INSTINCTS OF BEES. 331 



much more of imagination." To show how far 

 the excursive fancy of apiarians had sometimes 

 carried them, Mr. H. selected a very unfortunate 

 instance, namely, the assertion, as he calls it, that 

 workers' eggs may be converted into queens, a 

 fact which has since been established by a series 

 of the most satisfactory experiments. DR. VIREY, 

 in his Nouvelle Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, 

 denies that insects possess any portion of intellect, 

 and attributes all their operations to mere instinct, 

 which he considers as the result of pure mecha- 

 nism, depending upon the construction of their 

 nervous systems, in the same manner as the tune 

 played upon a barrel organ, is dependent on the 

 notes which the cylinder successively presents to 

 its keys. DES CARTES, and others before him, 

 held a similar opinion, considering insects as being 

 simply susceptible of external impressions, and 

 through the medium of that susceptibility stimu- 

 lated to act. If this doctrine be correct, instinct 

 is possessed alike by animals and vegetables ; in 

 short by every thing that has life, the difference 

 being not in quality, but in quantity. 



BUFFON attempted to explain the phaenomena 

 of insect life by the simple laws of mechanism, 

 conceding to the insects at the same time a power 

 of distinguishing and choosing between plea- 

 sure and pain. Some have even ventured to as- 

 sert that the invariable exactness of the cell-work 

 of bees is a proof of their stupidity, and " that 



