IMETHOD IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



19 



stupid. They are so truly the property or the species, that all its individuals perforin 

 them in the same way, without any improvement. 



Thus the working bees have always constructed very ingenious edifices, agreeably to 

 the rules of the highest geometry, and destined to lodge and nourish a posterity not 

 even their own. The wasps and the solitary bees also form very complicated nests, in 

 which to deposit their eggs. From this egg issues a grub, which has never seen its 

 parent, which is ignorant of the structure of the prison in which it is confined, but 

 which, once metamorphosed, constructs another precisely similar. 



In order to have a clear idea of instinct, it is necessary to admit that these animals 

 have innate and perpetual images or sensations in the sensorium, which induce them to 

 act as ordinary and accidental sensations commonly do. It is a sort of dream or vision 

 that ever haunts them, and may be considered, in all that relates to instinct, as a 

 kind of somnambulism. 



Instinct has been granted to animals as a supplement for intelligence, to concur with 

 it, and with force and fecundity, to the preservation, in a proper degree, of each species. 



There is no visible mark of instinct in the conformation of the animal ; but intelli- 

 gence, so far as has been observed, is in constant proportion to the relative size of the 

 brain, and particularly of its hemispheres.* 



OF METHOD, AS AFPLIED TO THE ANIMAL KINGBOM. 



After what we have said respecting methods in general, there remains to ascertain 

 which are the most influential characters of animals, that should serve as the basis of 

 their primary divisions. It is evident they should be those which are drawn from the 

 animal functions ; that is to say, from the sensations and movements ; for not only do 

 both these make the being an animal, but they establish, in a manner, its degree of 

 animality. 



Observation confirms this position, by showing that their degrees of developement 

 and complication accord with those of the organs of the vegetative functions. 



The heart and the organs of the circulation form a kind of centre for the vege- 

 tative functions, as the brain and trunk of tho nervous system do for the animal 



• One of the most curious phenomena of iustlnct is the transmission 

 of instilled habits by generation, as in the instance of high-bred 

 pointer and setter dogs, often requiring no training to fit them for 

 their particular modes of indicating game. Propensities are similarly 

 hereditary in the human species ; but innate knowledge, as a substi- 

 tute for individually acquired experience, is peculiar to brutes, which, 

 for the most part, are thrown upon their own resources, before they 

 liave had time or opportunities to gain the necessary information to 

 serve as a guide for the regulation of their conduct. All the higher aui- 

 mals, except the human species, appear to recognize their natural foc« 

 intuitively, to know even where their hidden weapons lie, also where 

 they (and likewise themselves) are most vulnerable, and they endea- 

 vour to use their own peculiar weapons before these are developed. If 

 incapable of resistance, they commonly have recourse to stratagem; 

 thus a brood of newly-hatched partridges will instantly cower motion- 

 less at sight of an object of distrust, the intent of which must be, that 

 the close similarity of their colour to that of the surface should cause 

 thera to be overlooked. Predatory animals, again, which immolate 

 victims capable of dangerous resistance, in5tincti\ely endeavour always 

 to attack a vital part, so as to effect their purpose speedily, and with 

 least hazard to themselves ; but those which prey on feeble and de 

 f-nceless animals attack indiscriminately. Many astonishing mani- 

 festations of the instinctive faculty occur respecting the manner in 

 which the food is obtained ; and in the ant and some rodent (luadrupeds, 

 Y'hlch store up grain, the embryo of every seed is destroyed, to pre- 

 vent germination. 



The seasonal migrative Impulse which recurs in some animals is 

 among the most iucomprehensiblc of instinctive phenomena, as it is 

 shown to be, in various cases, independent of food or temperature ; 

 though the latter, in particular, exercises some influence on its de- 

 velopement, as does also the state of the sexual organs in spring. The 

 giiiding principle of migration is equally mysterious, — that which 

 enables a bird of passage to return periodically to its former haunts, 

 to the same locality (both in winter and summer), which it had pre- 

 viously occupied ; and the young also to the place of their nativity. 

 This principle is farther evinced in the return of pigeons, &c. to their 

 accustomed place of abode from indefinite distances, and by a straighter 

 and more direct route than that by which they had been removed. It 

 appears, likewise, to be manifested in somnambulism, and, perhaps, in 

 some other affections of the human body ; but the sexual and parental 

 instincts are those which are chiefly cognizable in civilized man- 

 kind. 



One curious fact connected with the migrative propensity is, that 

 the same species is sometimes permanently resident in one locality, 

 and migratory in another. Tlius the robin, which is stationary in 

 Britain, leaves Germany in the autumn; which would seem to indi- 

 cate that the erratic habit may liave originated (in this instance) from 

 necessity, and in course of time have become regular and transmis- 

 sible, independently of external causes. Migratory animals, how- 

 ever, may commonly be distinguished from others of the same genuBj 

 by their superior structural powers of locomotion. — Ed, 



