108 SUPPLEMENT ON 



particularly acute, are far from possessing a supply of reason 

 to atone for the deficiency. 



With most of the actions of insects, which are determinate 

 and perfect, and performed Avithout instruction and expe- 

 rience, reason has evidently no connection. A young bee, 

 as we have before observed, builds as skilfully as the oldest ; 

 it has no knowledge of the design of any of its operations, or 

 of the effects which will follow. It is thus destitute of the 

 materials of reasoning. In the deviations of instinct which 

 we have noticed, we cannot suppose insects to be influenced 

 by reason. " They are" still limited in number," says Mr 

 Spence, " and involve acts far too complex and recondite to 

 spring from any process of ratiocination in an animal whose 

 term of life does not exceed two years.*" But the same gen- 

 tleman thinks, that reason may have a part " in inducing 

 some of these last-mentioned actions, though the actions 

 themselves are purely instinctive." This distinction is illus- 

 trated by a case cited from Huber, in which some bees bent 

 a comb at right angles, to escape a slip of glass ; the conse- 

 quent variation in the form of the cells, are referred to instinct, 

 by Mr. S. He then goes on to say, " Yet the original deter- 

 mination to avoid the glass, seems, as Huber himself ob- 

 serves, to indicate something more than instinct, since glass 

 is not a substance against which nature can be supposed to 

 have forewarned bees, there being nothing in hollow trees, 

 their natural abode, at all resembling it in substance or polish ; 

 and what was most striking in their operations was, that 

 they did not wait until they had reached the surface of the 

 glass before changing the direction of the comb, but adopted 

 this variation at a considerable distance, as though they 

 foresaw the inconveniences which might result from another 

 mode of construction. However difficult it may be to form 

 a clear conception of this union of instinct and reason in the 

 same operation, or to define precisely the limits of each, 



