12 
they may be seen in great numbers alighting on 
walls, rails, path-ways, &c.”* Some insects, 
and many larve (as the silk-worm) approaching 
to the state of pupa, form a covering for them- 
selves by exudations from their own bodies, 
likewise at some distance of time before the 
frosts set in. Many hybernating animals ex- 
hibit so little of any vital action as to require 
little or no nourishment during the winter, ex- 
cepting the product of absorption of their own 
fat; but it is also well known that many of 
different orders (as the beaver, the hedgehog, 
the squirrel, the dormouse, the bee, which are 
seldom or never quite torpid,) are guided b 
instinct to lay up stores of provisions, on whic 
they subsist during the winter. Some of these, 
as the lemming, have been observed to spread 
out their stores to dry in fine weather. me 
of the most curious of the provisions of this 
kind are the following :— 
“ There is an animal, the rat-hare, which is 
gifted by its Creator with a very singular in- 
stinct, on account of which it ought rather to be 
called the hay-maker, since man may or might 
have learned that part of the business of the 
agriculturist, which consists in providing a store 
of winter provender for his cattle, from this 
industrious animal. Professor Pallas was the 
first who described the quadruped exercising 
this remarkable function, and gave an account 
of it. The Tungusians, who inhabit the countr 
beyond the lake of Baikal, call it Pika, whic 
has been adopted as its trivial name. 
* About the middle of the month of August 
these little animals collect their winter’s pro- 
vender, formed of select herbs, which they bring 
near their habitations and spread out to dry 
like hay. In September they form heaps or 
stacks of the fodder they have collected under 
places sheltered from rain or snow. Where 
many of them have laboured together, their stacks 
are sometimes as high as a man, and more than 
eight feet in diameter. A subterranean gallery 
leads from the burrow below the mass of hay, 
so that neither frost nor snow can intercept their 
communication with it. Pallas had the pa- 
tience to examine their provision of hay piece by 
piece, and found it to consist chiefly of the 
choicest grasses and the sweetest herbs, all cut 
when most vigorous, and dried so slowly as to 
form a green and succulent fodder; he found 
in it scarcely any ears or blossoms, or hard and 
woody stems, but some mixture of bitter herbs, 
probably useful to render the rest more whole- 
some.”’+ 
“ Although,” says Kirby, “ ants during the 
cold winters in this country remain in a state of 
torpidity, and have no need of food, yet in 
warmer regions during the rainy seasons, when 
they are probably confined to their nests, a store 
of provisions may be necessary for them. Now 
although the rainy season, at least in America, 
is a season in which insects are full of life, yet 
the observation that ants may store up provi- 
sions in warm countries is confirm y an 
account sent me by Colonel Sykes, with respect 
* Introduction to Entomology, vol. ii, p. 438. 
t Ib. p. 507. 
INSTINCT. 
to another species which appears to belong to 
the same genus as the colsbeuted ants of visi- | 
tation, by which the houses of the inhabitants 
of Surinam were said to be cleared periodical) 
present species has been named by Mr. Hop 
the provident ant. These ants, after long-co 
tinued rains during the monsoon, were fe 
to bring up and lay upon the earth ona fi 
day, their stores of grass seeds and grains 
Guinea corn, for the purpose of drying them 
Many scores of these hoards were frequentl 
observable on the extensive parade at Poona! 
The great and important instinct of 
is another means by which the lives 
animals are preserved during winter. ~ 
number of species of birds, which pas 
summer to bring forth their young m 1 
country, but disappear from it im autumn, and” 
are known to spend the winter in the south ¢ 
Europe or Africa, has been stated at not less 
than five-sixths of the whole number ( 
here during the summer, and these are dese | 
by many other species, chiefly i 
waders, but likewise the field IgS, 
starlings, &c. which have brought forth 
young in the colder climates, and return 
for the winter. There are others, as the crane 
and stork, which perform similar mi ; 
but are rarely seen in this country. The 
tions of the larger birds from the 
regions are chiefly performed in large bodi 
forming angular lines, very high in the air 
those of the smaller birds of passage, lows, 
singing birds, &c. that go southwards from 
hence, seem to take place less regularly, and 
have been less accurately observed. ‘There are 
also many annual migrations from one part of 
this country to another, in spring and autumn, 
as of the plovers and lapwings, curlews, ring 
ouzels, &e. It is still doubtful with wh: 
sensations the propensity to perform these peri 
odical migrations is chiefly con whether 
with changes of temperature, or iency of 
food, or with the changes of the sexual desire 
(as maintained by Jenner.+) But it is certain 
that the migrations take place while the tem- 
perature is still such as is well borne by th 
animals; indeed of most of the ies 
birds of passage some individuals are ‘ 
observed not to migrate;{ and it is ly 
certain that most of the birds of passage do ne 
gradually withdraw, as if following the li 
changes of the food on which they live, but 
go off suddenly, and perform their voyages, p 
ticularly in autumn, so rapidly, as to be much 
exhausted and emaciated at the end of then 
so that it is certainly not under the influence 
sensations gradually changing and g to 
partial and successive changes of place, bu 
under that of a strong determination, overe 
ing the motives to action which are 
predominant, and commanding strenuous and 
painful exertion at a time when no great incon- 
venience is felt, that these voyages are per- 
* Vol. ii. p. 344, 
7 Phil. Trans. 1824, 
¢ See Darwin, Zoonomia, sect. xvi. 12, 
