VI 



INSTINCT 77 



Equally well known is the same observer's experiment 

 on the larva of Chalicodoma. 



" This genus is enclosed in an earthen cell, through which at 

 maturity the young insect eats its way. M. Fabre found that 

 if he pasted a piece of paper round the cell the insect had no 

 difficulty in eating through it, but if he enclosed the cell in a 

 paper case, so that there was a space even of only a few lines 

 between the cell and the paper, in that case the paper formed an 

 effectual prison. The instinct of the insect taught it to bite 

 through one enclosure, but it had not wit enough to do so a 

 second time." 1 



What seems like unremitting maternal love is suddenly 

 shown in quite a different light by a slight alteration of 

 the conditions. The Bembex carefully feeds her grub, and 

 never makes a mistake in rinding her way to her cell, 

 although it is covered with sand and is then undistinguish- 

 able to us from the surroundings, but when M. Fabre 

 removed the earth and exposed the cell, the Bembex did 

 not appear to recognise the young that she had so carefully 

 tended. 2 One is driven to infer a very different mental 

 process from that of the bird, which will follow her young 

 if taken from her, or even from that of the perch, that will 

 remove a nest that has once been disturbed. 3 



Traces of this mechanical method of response are found 

 side by side or blended with intelligence in the higher 

 animals. Mr. Lloyd Morgan quotes an amusing story of 

 a tame squirrel which would " bury " a nut in the floor of 

 a room. 



" He would press the nut down on the carpet, and then go 

 through all the motions of patting the earth over it, after which 

 he went about his business as if that nut were safely buried." 4 



The dog's habit of turning round before going to sleep 

 is of a similar character, and so are numberless little 

 irrational habits of which we are aware in our friends. 5 A 



proves the contrary. See also Peckham, Solitary Wasps^ p. 39. Many 

 human actions are performed mechanically day by day, but a sufficiently 

 strong stimulus directs attention to them, and brings intelligence to bear. 



1 M.E.A. p. 1 66. 2 Lubbock, loc. tit. p. 254. 



3 Romanes, p. 251. Cf. Schneider. 4 Habit and Instinct, p. 123. 



5 Habit and Instinct, though of different origin, have so many points of 

 resemblance that we may be allowed sometimes to illustrate the one by an 

 example from the other. 



