1 50 EVOL UT10N AND NA TURAL THEOL G Y. 



some forming beds of leaves which are supposed 

 to nourish the fungus on which they feed, and 

 others storing up or even cultivating grain.* I 

 It may fairly be doubted, whether our own em- 

 ployments, even in the most industrious and 

 most highly civilised communities, would appear 

 as rational to beings proportionately larger, as 

 those of ants do to ourselves ; especially as their 

 language appears to be tactile, whereas ours is 

 articulate. It is, however, difficult to compare 

 ourselves to animals of so totally different a 

 nature ; and we will now consider the intelli- 

 gence of the higher Yertebrata. 



It is commonly asserted that birds build 

 their nests purely by instinct ; but the correct- 

 ness of this assumption was questioned by 

 Wallace in his Essays on Bird's Nests, in his 

 " Contributions to Natural Selection." His 

 reasoning, however, is weaker on this subject 

 than usual, and he has been answered with some 

 effect by Bree.f We are, however, always too 

 apt to assume that animals are incapable of 



* Compare Belt's account of the Leaf-cutting ants, in his 

 ' Naturalist in Nicaragua," Moggridge's " Harvesting Ants," McCook's 

 " Agricultural Ant of Texas," &c. 



f " Fallacies in the Doctrines of Mr. Darwin," ch. xx. 



