36i: Mr. French's Inquirt/ concenihig Instinct. 



times forget their caution in avoiding them, and fall victims to 

 their neglect of the instinctive warning. In the county of West 

 Chester, in the province of New York, a swarm which settled 

 upon the branches of the Poison Ash (Rhus Vernix, L.) were on 

 the following morning found dead and swollen.* This and other 

 circumstances demonstrate the subordinate liberty of these minute 

 agents. Their intuitive perception appears to form a plane of 

 reaction analogous to the reason of man ; perception is their 

 reason, and they freely exercise their physical powers in accom- 

 ])lishing by its aid the ends of their being : but a slight prepon- 

 denince of one instinctive desire over another, such as that of 

 gathering honey over that of avoiding the poisonous nectar, whether 

 brought about by the paucity of wholesome flowers or by other 

 circumstances, is sufficient to make them disregard the perception 

 of the noxious quality in favour of that of storing up, and pro- 

 ceeding with their hive work : and the fatal consequence ensues. 

 The stronger instinctive desire, and its relative perception, over- 

 comes the weaker. On this account the instinctive desire of 

 obedience, with its correspondent perception, in the Dog, is so 

 strong, that it will overcome almost every other, even that of the 

 desire of food. In this respect he entirely differs from the Cat, 

 who, though a very sagacious animal, will in general steal in spite 

 of discipline. Intuitive desires, and their perceptions, appear in- 

 deed to regulate the actions of animals, according to their prevail- 

 ing ascendancy ; but as the creatures seem to exercise a free con- 

 troul, subordinate to this, over their bodily acts and locomotions, 

 we are thus enabled to account for every variety of apparent 

 voluntary and free determination on the part of the higher ani- 

 mals ; whose conscious sense of existence and of action is without 

 doubt formed upon the sentiment of this subordinate freedom. 

 Mr. Bingley relates, on the authority of Catesby, that " When 

 the Europeans first visited America, they found the Flamingos 

 (Phoenicopterus ruber, L.) on the shores tame and gentle, and no 

 way distrustful of mankind. When the fowler had killed one, 

 the rest of the flock, instead of attempting to fly, only regarded 

 the fall of their companion in a kind of fixed astonishment: an- 



« Nicholson's Pliilos. Jouni. XXIII. p. 231. 



