340 INSTINCTIVE OPERATIONS. 



of almost every other kind it is exhibited on occasion. It re- 

 conducts the salmon, after a long sea- voyage, to the spot where 

 it has once spawned ; it guides the returning flight of the car- 

 rier-pigeon and the bird of passage ; and that this pilot sense is 

 the gift also of various quadrupeds, is attested sufficiently by 

 facts, of which almost every individual could vouch for one, 

 relative to some canine or feline favourite. 



But returning to bees, it is to instinct in its operative form 

 that these winged artificers are indebted for the plan of their 

 " waxen palaces " and hexagonal apartments, which for adap- 

 tation, for saving at once of material and of space, could not 

 be improved on by mathematic calculation. The grand pro- 

 portion, in short, of all labours and proceedings in the insect 

 world, would seem clearly referable to Instinct, a lamp of 

 Divine light which, shining with peculiar lustre in this depart- 

 ment of the animal kingdom, decreases, though still powerful, 

 amongst birds and quadrupeds, and dwindles in man, in 

 him, as observed by Coleridge, growing proportionately "dim- 

 mer, as his reason shines more bright." 



But does reason shine alone for man of all the inhabitants 

 of earth ? Men there are, not perhaps of those who best cul- 

 tivate this most improveable possession, who would yet for 

 themselves and kind claim its exclusive monopoly. Such as 

 these must grudge of course to the gigantic elephant even the 

 half justice commonly awarded him in the epithet of "half- 

 reasoning" animal ; and looking on him merely as an enormous 



