240 THE HONEY-BEE. 



safeguard against expected putrefaction. The cessa- 

 tion from grief for loss of a queen, when new royal 

 cells are preparing, may be regarded as evidence of 

 anticipated joy in a coming monarch. We acknow- 

 ledge, however, that here the dividing line between 

 reason and instinct becomes very narrow, and it is 

 exceedingly difficult to determine the strict limits of 

 either. 



At this point, also, comes in the remarkable question 

 of heredity. The causes and determining circum- 

 stances of this quality are at present very imperfectly 

 understood ; nor is it probable that anything like a 

 complete explanation of the subject will be forth- 

 coming. That it is, however, a most potent element 

 in the subject of mental, as well as physical, cha- 

 racters cannot be disputed. To it, in fact, the pos- 

 session of what we call instinct must be entirely 

 referred, though it leaves untouched the actual 

 nature of this endowment. 



The definition of instinct is not a very simple mat- 

 ter, but we may consider it as a power, appearing in 

 generation after generation of animals, by which, with- 

 out instruction, they perform certain actions, or series 

 of actions, tending to the welfare of the individual or 

 of the race. We usually regard the purely intellectual 

 operations as improvable by education. Instinct, on 

 the other hand, neither requires, nor, in general, is 

 aided by teaching. It is true that man has taken 

 advantage of certain qualities, apparently instinctive, 

 in particular animals, and has seemed to improve 

 them by schooling them, as, for instance, in the case 

 of pointers and setters among dogs ; but it is rather, 

 as it appears to us, the mental processes of the 



