9056 Insects. 
I believe, held by Mr. Smith. I do not for a moment deny that an animal may 
reflect, and act on reflection; that it is capable of receiving instruction, and of 
acquiring a variety of accomplishments, if so they may be called. A monkey will 
learn to dance, smoke, stand on its head, fire a gun and imitate exactly a hundred 
other human actions, but all this is the result of laborious and long-continued 
teaching. The bee, on the contrary, without any teaching, without any meditation, 
begins to make its beautiful and symmetrical.cell the hour it is born: it is as much an 
irresistible act, and the architect is as much an irresponsible agent, as the hen that 
covers her egg with a calcareous shell before extrusion, and produces it of the best 
possible form for the purpose for which it is intended. The egg and the cell are 
worthy of all admiration, but neither the brain of the hen nor that of the bee have 
laboured in their construction. This granted, the question of lateral pressure is of 
very secondary importance; it is a question that has only been imported into the 
controversy as accessory or supplementary, and forms no part of the simple inquiry, 
whether the hexahedral form of cell is due to the sagacity of the bee. Mr. Spence, in 
controverting the views expressed in Darwin’s ‘ Zoonomia,’ says, * The single fact, 
depending on the assertions of such accurate observers as Reaumur and Swammerdam, 
that a bee, as soon after it is disclosed from the pupa as its body is dried and its 
wings expanded, and before it is possible it should have received any instruction, 
betakes itself to the collecting of honey or the fabrication of a cell, which operation it 
performs as adroitly as the most hoary inhabitant of the hive,” &c. Now this is a fact 
not open to question; Mr. Smith would admit the premises without hesitation; but if 
I understand him right, be would deny the truth of Mr. Spence’s definition of # 
instinct,—* those unknown faculties implanted by the Creator, by which, independent 
of instruction, observation or experience, and without a knowledge of the end in view, 
they are impelled to the performance of certain actions tending to the well-being of 
the individual and the preservation of the species.” Such, for instance, is the 
construction of a cell, and such is the covering of an egg with a calcareous shell; in 
neither case is the act optional, it is compulsory. I purposely select extreme cases, 
but the practical naturalist will readily supply intermediate ones which will fuse 
them into a single principle: that instinct, taking it as defined by Mr. Spence, 
“compels animals to provide for the well being and continuance of their race.” 
Mr. Spence, in continuation of the subject, gives a multitude of most interesting 
exceptions to the ordinary modes of working adopted by bees, and, after dwelling on 
each instance fully and fairly, he rejects all idea of any higher or other cause than 
compulsory instinct: he says, “No degree of reason that we can, with any share of 
probability attribute to bees could be competent to the performance of labours so com- 
plicated, which, if the result be considered, would involve the most extensive and 
varied knowledge on the part of the agents.” Deviations from what we should be 
inclined to call a normal or regular course are equally abundant throughout the 
vegetable and the animal world; take, for instance, the honeysuckle: in a dwarf hedge, 
it, shows no inclination to climb, but expands its blossoms within a yard of the ground, 
all that it seeks for them is exposure to the sun: move a plant of honeysuckle from 
that dwarf hedge into a dense cuppice, where the hazel stems attain a height of twenty 
feet, and it will alter its character entirely: like a little snake it will twine round and 
round the stems, ascend to the very summit, and, surmounting the topmost foliage of 
the hazel, will expand its blossoms in the summer sun: the bees that were compelled 
by Huber to build their combs horizontally, instead of vertically, exhibited no higher 
