406 INSTINCTIVE ACTIONS. 



places of security, for the process of transformation, are per- 

 formances no less admirable of the caterpillar crew ; and the 

 instinct which directed them, dormant for awhile, with other 

 faculties, in the chrysalis, wakes again in the winged insect. 

 Thereby directed, the moth or butterfly, perhaps guided also 

 by her taste and smell, repairs directly to the flowers whereon 

 she loves most to take her pleasure ; and then, in opposition to 

 those very senses, proceeds, at Instinct's bidding, to the flower- 

 less shrub or vegetable, for deposit of her eggs on the leaves 

 best suited to support her unthought-of progeny. 



With bees, ants, and other social insects, Instinct would not 

 appear, as with the Lepidoptera, to spring from the egg in full 

 maturity, not at least with the active and varied powers after- 

 wards acquired. In bee grubhood, also in that of wasps and 

 ants, the instincts of imbibing nourishment and of spinning 

 their cocoons would seem the only ones in activity, the place of 

 all others being supplied by that watchful assiduity, also in- 

 stinctive, with which the labourers of the hive or ant-hill tend 

 upon the young of their communities. But no sooner does the 

 bee attain to maturity, than Instinct, in full development, like 

 the form over which it is to bear rule, impels the wings untried, 

 to carry their possessor by the shortest cut to the flowery fields 

 of her earliest labour ; then reconducts her to her straw-built 

 home as unerringly as though she, the tyro gatherer, were the 

 most veteran collector of the hive. 



But does reason shine alone for man of all the inhabitants of 

 earth ? Men there are, not perhaps of those who best cultivate this 

 most improveable possession, who would yet for themselves and 

 kind claim its exclusive monopoly. Such as these must grudge 

 of course to the gigantic elephant even the half-justice com- 

 monly awarded him in the epithet of " half -reasoning" animal ; 

 and looking on him merely as an enormous clock, of which the 

 clumsy machinery is worked alone by instinct, what other can 

 they do than regard as a tiny watch that insect miracle yclept 

 an ant? None acquainted at all with the chronicles of ele- 



