INTRODUCTION, 



31 



stupid. They are so truly the property ot the species, that all its individuals perform 

 them in the same way, without any improvement. 



Thus the working bees have always constructed very ingenious edifices, agreeably to 

 the rules of the highest geometiy, and destined to lodge and nourish a posterity not 

 even their own. The wasps and the solitary bees also form very complicated nests, in 

 which to deposit their eggs. From this egg issues a grub, which has never seen its 

 parent, which is ignorant of the structure of the prison in which it is confined, but 

 which, once metamorphosed, constructs another precisely similar. 



In order to have a clear idea of instinct, it is necessary to admit that these animals 

 have innate and perpetual images or sensations in the sensorium, which induce them to 

 act as ordinary and accidental sensations commonly do. It is a sort of dream or vision 

 that ever haunts them, and may be considered, in all that relates to instinct, as a 

 kind of somnambulism. 



Instinct has been granted to animals as a supplement for intelligence, to concur with 

 it, and with force and fecundity, to the preservation, in a proper degree, of each species. 



There is no visible mark of instinct in the conformation of the animal ; but intelli- 

 gence, so far as has been observed, is in constant proportion to the relative size of the 

 brain, and particularly of its hemispheres."^ 



OF METHOD, AS APPLIED TO THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



After what we have said respecting methods in general, there remains to ascertain 

 which are the most influential characters of animals, that should serve as the basis of 

 their primary divisions. It is evident they should be those which are drawn from the 

 animal functions ; that is to say, from the sensations and movements ; for not only do 

 both these make the being an animal, but they establish, in a manner, its degree of 

 animality. 



Observation confirms this position, by showing that their degrees of developement 

 and complication accord with those of the organs of the vegetative functions. 



The heart and the organs of the circulation form a kind of centre for the vege- 

 tative functions, as the brain and trunk of the nervous system do for the animal 



* One of the most curious phenomena 

 of instilled habits by generation, as i 

 pointer and setter dogs, often requiring 

 their particular modes of indicating gaii 

 hereditary in the human species ; but ii 

 tute for individually acquired experienc 

 for the most part, are thrown upon thei 



F instinct is the transmission 

 the instance of high-bred 

 lo training to 6t them for 

 Propensities are similarly 

 ate knowledge, as a substi- 

 is peculiar to brutes, which, 

 own resources, before they 



have had time or opportunities to gain the necessary information to 

 serve as a guide for the regulation of their conduct. All the higher ani- 

 mals, except the human species, appear to recognize their natural focB 

 intuitively, to know even where their hidden weapons lie, also where 

 they (and likewise themselves) are most vulnerable, and they endea- 

 vour to use their own peculiar weapons before these are developed. If 

 incapable of resistance, they commonly have recour.se to stratagem; 

 thus a brood of newly-hatched partridges will instantly cower motion- 

 less at sight of an object of distrust, the intent of which must he, that 

 the close similarity of their colour to that of the surface should cause 

 them to be overlooked. Predatory animals, again, which immolate 

 victims capable of dangerous resistance, instinctively endeavour always 

 to attack a vital part, so as to effect their purpose speedily, and with 

 lenst hazard to tnemsclves ; but those which prey on feeble and de- 

 fenceless animals attack indiscriminately. Many astonishing mani- 

 festations of the instinctive faculty occur respecting the manner in 

 which the food is obtained ; and in the ant and some rodent quadrupeds, 

 which store up grain, the embryo of every seed is destroyed, to pre- 

 vent germination. 



ctive phenomena, as it is 

 of food or temperature ; 

 ,)me influence on its de- 

 al organs in spring. The 

 iiysterious,— that which 

 ally to its former haunts, 

 mmer), which it had pre- 



The seasonal migrative impulse wl 

 among the most incomprehensible of i 

 shown to be, in various cases, independent 

 though the latter, in particular, exercises s 

 vclopement, as does also the state of the sexi 

 guiding principle of migration is equally 

 enables a bird of passage to return periodii 

 to the same locality (both in winter and si 

 viuusly occupied ; and the young also to the place of their nativity. 

 This principle is farther evinced in the return of pigeons, Stc. to their 

 accustomed place of abode from indeBnite distances, and by a straightcr 

 and more direct route than that by which they had been removed. It 

 appears, likewise, to be manifested in somnambulism, and, perhaps, in 

 some other atTections of the human body ; but the sexual and parental 

 instincts are those which are chiefly cognisable iu civilized man- 

 kind. 



One curious fact connected with the migrative propensity is, that 

 the same species is sometimes permanently resident in one locality, 

 and migratory in another. Thus the robin, which is stationary in 

 liritain, leaves Germany in the autumn ; which would seem to indi- 

 cate that the erratic habit may have originated (in this instance) from 

 necessity, and in course of time have become regular and transmis- 

 sible, independently of external causes. Migratory animals, how- 

 ever, may commonly be distinguished from others of the same ijcnus, 

 by their superior structural powers of locomotion.— Ed. 



