338 INSTINCTIVE ACTIONS. 



for to prove ; but for the present setting these aside, let us re- 

 view briefly a few of the workings, in the insect world, of that 

 mysterious faculty we have been considering, that mental me- 

 chanism of wondrous adaptation of which the springs would 

 seem hidden from all save their Great Artificer, or, possibly, 

 some inquiring spirits permitted to see further than ourselves 

 into the secrets of creation. 



Through Instinct, that endowment which is usually as perfect 

 in the insect's creeping infancy as in its soaring adolescence, 

 all caterpillars are directed to find, or more properly to appro- 

 priate, the food instinctively provided by the mother's instinct, 

 while some, even before that provision is attacked or cared 

 for, are bidden by the same imperative power to shape and 

 clothe themselves with garments made generally out of the 

 same material as that to be employed for food. Of this we 

 have seen examples in the clothes-moth in its state of infancy, 

 with others of the same tribe (Tineidce) which make to them- 

 selves cases, or moveable tents (whence they are called tent- 

 makers), out of leaves, bark, and other substances. 



The weaving, most ingeniously, of variously-formed cocoons, 

 more or less solid, according usually to the period of their oc- 

 cupation, the suspending themselves no less cleverly, and in 

 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. 



