INSTINCT AND INTELLIGENCE. 



able, as in many cases the young in their primitive state of larva 

 inhabit an element and are nourished by substances totally 

 different from those which are proper to their parent. 



The instinct which guides certain animals to confer upon their 

 young a sort of education, developing faculties and phenomena 

 having a close analogy to those manifested in the conduct and 

 operations of our own minds, never fails to excite as much astonish- 

 ment as admiration, and teaches, more eloquently than words, 

 how much above all that man can imagine or conceive, that power 

 must be which has created so many wonders. 



40. But the acts which manifest in the most striking manner 

 the play of the instinctive faculty, are those already referred 

 to by which insects, in the deposition of their eggs, adopt such 

 precautions as are best calculated for the preservation of the 

 young, which are destined to issue from these eggs when the pro- 

 vident mother is no more. 



41. To comprehend fully this class of acts, it will be necessary 

 to remind the reader that insects in general, before they attain 

 their perfect state, pass through two preliminary stages, in which 

 their habits, characters, and wants are totally different from those 

 of the parent. The first stages into which the animal passes in 

 emerging from the egg, is that of the larva, or grub ; and the 

 second, that of the nymph, or pupa. 



Not only is the form and external organisation of the larva 

 different from that of the insect into which it is destined to be 

 ultimately transformed, but it is generally nourished by a differ- 

 ent species of food, and often lives in a different element. Thus, 

 while the perfect insect feeds upon vegetable juices, its larva is 

 often voraciously carnivorous. "While the perfect insect lives 

 chiefly on the wing in the open air, the larva is sometimes aquatic, 

 sometimes dwells on the hairs, or in the integuments, or even in 

 the stomach or intestines of certain animals. The insect, there- 

 fore, cannot be imagined to know, from any experience, what will 

 be the natural wants of the young which are destined to emerge 

 from her eggs. 



In many cases, any such knowledge on her part is still more 

 inconceivable, inasmuch as the mother dies before her young 

 break the shell. Nevertheless, in all cases, this mother, in 

 the deposition of her eggs, is found to adopt all the measures 

 which the most tender and provident solicitude for her young can 

 suggest. If her young, for example, are aquatic, she deposits her 

 eggs near the surface of water. If they are destined to feed upon 

 the flesh or juices of any species of animal, she lays not only upon 

 the particular animal in question, but precisely at those parts 

 where the young shall be sure to find their proper nourishment. 

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